When considering the entire range of left ventricular ejection fractions (LVEF) after a myocardial infarction, this parameter is a powerful predictor of mortality. However extended follow up studies have shown that prolonged survival occurs in some patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) who have adverse conventional prognostic markers, including very low LVEF. In patients with LVEF < 20%,...

-type natriuretic peptides (BNP and N-terminal [NT]roBNP) have been shown to be extremely helpful in the iagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of therapy of patients ith heart failure (HF) (1). These neurohormones are preominately secreted from the left and the right cardiac ventricle n response to cardiac stress. The BNPs can be seen as uantitative markers of HF summarizing the extent of systoli...

Background: It has not been yet developed a ost suitable method to treat right ventricular failure due to pulmonar artery hypertention resulted from ventricular arrhythia. Though some case reports about patients ready to heart transplant using left assist device or biventral assist device as bridge have been published in Journals, but nocase concerning application of centrifugal pump for treatm...

takotsubo cardiomypathy is a very rare cardiovascular syndrome leading to myocardial infarction and left ventricular dysfunction in the absence of a detectable coronary artery lesion. it is accepted as reversible left ventricular asynergy occuring typically after an intrinsic adrenergic hyperstimulation. in this report we present takotsubo cardiomyopathy in a 75-year-old patient with multiple a...

background: n-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (nt-probnp) is a sensitive biomarker for the detection of asymptomatic left ventricular (lv) dysfunction. since β-thalassemia major patients suffer from early diastolic dysfunction due to iron deposition of chronic blood transfusion, we tried to evaluate the correlation between the serum nt-probnp level and the severity of lv diastolic dysfun...

BACKGROUND Through ventricular interdependence, pulmonary hypertension (PH) induces left ventricular (LV) dysfunction. We hypothesized that pediatric PH patients have LV diastolic dysfunction, related to adverse pulmonary hemodynamics, leftward septal shift, and prolonged right ventricular systole. METHODS AND RESULTS Echocardiography was prospectively performed at 2 institutions in 54 pediat...

BACKGROUND Left ventricular ejection fraction remains the primary risk stratification tool used in the selection of patients for implantable cardioverter defibrillator therapy. However, this solitary marker fails to identify a substantial portion of patients experiencing sudden cardiac arrest. In this study, we examined the incremental value of considering right ventricular ejection fraction fo...

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (also known as arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia) is characterized by adipose or fibroadipose tissue replacement of the right ventricular myocardium, whereas the left ventricle is substantively spared. Two cases of the disease with evidence of extensive left ventricular involvement at pathologic examination are described. Hearts from two ...

Pulmonary embolism (PE) presents with a wide clinical spectrum, from asymptomatic small PE to lifethreatening major PE that causes hypotension and cardiogenic shock (Table). Traditionally, our risk assessment is done by gestalt. However, a more precise risk assessment can be obtained by using a formal clinical scoring system, such as the Geneva Prognostic Index.1 The Geneva Prognostic Index use...