An instrument made by ourselves was used to fabricate biodegradable chitosan-heparin artificial vascular prosthesis with small internal diameter (2 mm) and different crosslinking degree from biodegradable chitosan, chitosan derivates and heparin. In vivo and in vitro degradation studies, inflammatory analysis and electron microscope scanning of this artificial vascular prosthesis were performed...

Results PAVR was performed in 137 consecutive patients. All but 1 patient underwent planned arteriotomy closure using a percutaneous pre-closure technique. Smaller sheaths, rigorous angiographic and computed tomographic screening and patient selection, and percutaneous vascular repair techniques were increasingly used over this period. From 2009 to 2010, major vascular complications decreased f...

It is uncertain whether small vessel disease underlies the relationship between Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and brain atrophy. We aimed to study whether retinal vascular architecture, as a proxy for cerebral small vessel disease, may modify or mediate the associations of T2DM with brain volumes. In this cross-sectional study using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans and retinal photograp...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The baroreflex pathway has a vascular and a neural segment, both being modulated by variations in peripheral blood pressure (BP). Besides overall baroreceptor sensitivity (BRS), defined as the spectral relationship between changes in peripheral BP and R-R interval within the frequency band of 0.05-0.15 Hz, vascular and neural segment contributions to the overall BRS can be disti...

In order to obtain direct information on the properties of the resistance vasculature of patients with advanced uraemia, a technique was developed to dissect out small arteries (internal diameter about 165 microns) from biopsies of subcutaneous fat. Such arteries responded in a concentration-dependent manner to noradrenaline and angiotensin II, and the maximal force developed suggested that the...

BACKGROUND Several methods of noninvasive vascular function testing have been suggested for cardiovascular risk screening in the community. A direct comparison of the different methods and their relation to classical cardiovascular risk factors in a large cohort is missing. METHODS AND RESULTS In 5000 individuals (mean age, 55.5 ± 10.9 years; age range, 35 to 74 years; women, 49.2%) of the po...

Important characteristics of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) include airway and vascular remodeling, the molecular mechanisms of which are poorly understood. We assessed the role of fibroblast growth factors (FGF) in pulmonary vascular remodeling by examining the expression pattern of FGF-1, FGF-2, and the FGF receptor (FGFR-1) in peripheral area of lung tissues from patients with ...

BACKGROUND Small dense low density lipoprotein (sdLDL) has recently emerged as an important risk factor of coronary heart disease. METHODS The mean LDL particle size was measured in 203 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and 212 matched subjects without diabetes using polyacrylamide tube gel electrophoresis. Major vascular complications were defined as stroke, angiographically-docu...

The objective of this study was to establish the baseline retinal hemodynamic characteristics of stratified groups of diabetic patients at increasing risk for the development of diabetic macular edema (DME). Group 1 had 50 control subjects, group 2 had 56 diabetic patients without clinically visible retinopathy, group 3 had 54 diabetic patients with microaneurysms and/or hard exudates within tw...