Purpose Endothelial dysfunction is the earliest abnormality in the development of coronary atherosclerosis. Rubidium-82 (82 Rb) is a generator-produced positron emission tomography (PET) myocardial perfusion tracer that is becoming more widely used. We aimed to develop a method for quantitative assessment of coronary endothelial function using the myocardial blood flow (MBF) response during a c...

UNLABELLED Cigarette smoking is one of the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases and is related to abnormal peripheral and coronary vascular vasomotion. Coronary vascular endothelial dysfunction is caused by chronic smoking in smokers without epicardial coronary artery stenosis. The coronary endothelial vasomotion abnormality is restored by interventions such as l-arginine or vitamin C infusi...

Background Several studies have shown the potential of semi-quantitative and fully-quantitative analysis of cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) perfusion images in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD). However, estimates of myocardial blood flow (MBF) rely on accurate selection of important timing parameters. In this study, we evaluate how the identification of the timing of the S...

Background Diagnostic studies using dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) MRI perfusion imaging typically evaluate perfusion in terms of the myocardial perfusion reserve (MPR), which is the ratio of stress to rest myocardial blood flow (MBF) measurements. The aim of this study was to establish whether or not, in the case of absolute MBF quantitation, the MPR exhibits a diagnostic advantage over the s...

UNLABELLED Although physical exercise is the preferred stimulus for cardiac stress testing, pharmacologic agents are useful in patients who are unable to exercise. Previous studies have demonstrated short-term repeatability of exercise and adenosine stress, but little data exist regarding dobutamine (Dob) stress or the long-term reproducibility of pharmacologic stressors in coronary artery dise...

Effects of DQ-2511, a new peripherally acting anti-ulcer agent, on vagally induced gastric acid output and mucosal blood flow (MBF) were investigated in urethane-anesthetized rats with gastric fistula. Intravenous infusion of DQ-2511 (2 or 20 mg/kg/hr, for 30 min) reduced the vagally induced gastric acid output and MBF, and these inhibitory effects were abolished by pretreatment with phentolami...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine how calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP) via axon reflex participates in increasing local muscle blood flow (MBF) following manual acupuncture (MA). METHODS Male Sprague-Dawley rats (N=56, 270-350 g) were used. We examined (1) the effects of MA on MBF in the tibialis anterior (TA) muscle in normal rats; (2) the effects of MA on MBF in the...

Purpose: to evaluate the topical use effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor (iACE) Enalaprilat in eye drops on blood flow volume, hypoxia degree, ACE activity, and total antioxidant activity (TAA) aqueous humor rabbits with experimental ocular ischemia. Material methods . Transient ischemia 30 Chinchilla was induced by subconjunctivally injecting 0.2 ml 1 % Phenylephrine. Ocula...

BACKGROUND We aimed to investigate the cardiac effects of left bundle-branch block (LBBB) using myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) to ascertain the value of MCE for detecting coronary artery disease (CAD) and to uncover the mechanism that affects the accuracy of single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in these patients. METHODS AND RESULTS Sixty-three symptomatic LBBB patie...

BACKGROUND Absolute quantification of perfusion with cardiovascular magnetic resonance has not previously been applied in patients with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Owing to increased contrast bolus dispersion due to the greater distance of travel through a bypass graft, this approach may result in systematic underestimation of myocardial blood flow (MBF). As resting MBF remains norm...