Nonpenetrating trauma to the chest can result in cardiac damage that may be overlooked because of associated injuries and the lack of obvious thoracic injury. The clinical diagnosis of important cardiac damage in this setting is difficult. We evaluated noninvasive tests for detecting myocardial damage in 100 patients with severe, nonpenetrating chest trauma. The noninvasive tests included seria...

This experimental work has been carried out with the aim of studying the ultrastructural myocardial changes caused by prolonged anoxic cardiac arrest during cardiopulmonary bypass, and their prevention by means of two different techniques of coronary perfusion--systemic-pressure continuous and low-pressure intermittent perfusion. After 30 minutes of cardiac anoxia, the ultrastructural changes o...

OBJECTIVE Glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3beta plays an important role in cardiomyopathies. Cardiac-specific metallothionein-overexpressing transgenic (MT-TG) mice were highly resistant to diabetes-induced cardiomyopathy. Therefore, we investigated whether metallothionein cardiac protection against diabetes is mediated by inactivation of GSK-3beta. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Diabetes was ind...

Background—Recent studies suggest that mutations in cardiac mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) may contribute to the development of dilated cardiomyopathy. The mechanisms that regulate those mutations, however, remain undefined. Thus, we studied cardiac mtDNA repair mechanisms, mtDNA damage, and mitochondrial structure and function in mice with heart failure secondary to overexpression of TNF(TNF1.6 mic...

Background. Parvovirus B19 (B19V) is a common finding in endomyocardial biopsy specimens from myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy patients. However, current understanding of how B19V is contributing to cardiac damage is rather limited due to the lack of appropriate mice models. In this work we demonstrate that immunization of BALB/c mice with the major immunogenic determinant of B19V located...

objective(s): the aim of this study was to estimate effects of hyperbaric (hb) treatment by determination of cd15s and cd11b leukocyte proinflammatory markers expression.  in addition, this study describes changes in cd77 and cd34 expression on rat endothelial cells in renal, pulmonary and cardiac tissue following exposure to hyperbaric pressure. materials and methods:expression of cd11b and cd...

mitochondria play an important role in energy production for the cell. the proper function of a myocardial cell largely depends on the functional capacity of the mitochondria.  therefore it is necessary to establish a novel and reliable method for a non-invasive assessment of mitochondrial function and metabolism in humans. although originally designed for evaluating myocardial perfusion, 99mtc...

Anthracyclines have gained widespread use in the treatment of numerous malignancies in both adults and children. Unfortunately, their use is limited by the occurrence of cardiac damage. The precise mechanism underlying this is still not fully understood, but a major role has been ascribed to free radical generation by anthracycline-iron complexes. The heart is particularly vulnerable to free ra...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to assess cardiac function and cell damage in intrauterine growth-restricted (IUGR) fetuses across clinical Doppler stages of deterioration. STUDY DESIGN One hundred twenty appropriate-for-gestational-age and 81 IUGR fetuses were classified in stages 1/2/3 according umbilical artery present/absent/reversed end-diastolic blood flow, respectively. Cardiac...