Background Structural myocardial changes accompany myocardial pathologies such as myocardial ischemia, myocarditis, hypertrophy (HCM) and myocardial remodeling. These changes affect T2 relaxation times which can noninvasively be detected by cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR). Since the interpretation of T2 weighted images remains a “risky business” due to subjectivity, the purpose ...

As the ultimate pathophysiological event, heart failure (HF) may arise from various cardiovascular (CV) conditions, including sustained pressure/volume overload of left ventricle, myocardial infarction or ischemia, and cardiomyopathies. Sacubitril/valsartan (S/V; formerly termed as LCZ696), a first-in-class angiotensin receptor/neprilysin inhibitor, brought significant shift in management HF wi...

An understanding of the role of autophagic processes in the management of cardiac metabolic stress responses is advancing rapidly and progressing beyond a conceptualization of the autophagosome as a simple cell recycling depot. The importance of autophagy dysregulation in diabetic cardiomyopathy and in ischemic heart disease - both conditions comprising the majority of cardiac disease burden - ...

A review of heart diseases in Africa shows that the cardiomyopathies continue to be important causes of morbidity and mortality in the population. Hypertension remains the commonest cause of myocardial disease, followed by the cardiomyopathies. Ischaemic heart disease continues to be rare. Of the cardiomyopathies, dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is still the commonest. A large proportion of patien...

introduction: in the current study, protective effect of natural honey applied during ischemia/reperfusion (i/r) was studied on infarct size in ischemic heartheart. methods: ischemic hearthearts (n=8 per group) were mounted on a langendorff apparatus at constant pressure then subjected to 30 min regional ischemia followed by 120 min reperfusion. in control group, the hearts were perfused by a m...

Cardiac MR imaging has made major inroads in the new millennium in the diagnosis and assessment of prognosis for patients with cardiomyopathies. Imaging of left and right ventricular structure and function and tissue characterization with late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) as well as T1 and T2 mapping enable accurate diagnosis of the underlying etiology. In the setting of coronary artery disease...

Myocarditis is a recognized but underdiagnosed cause of cardiomyopathy due to its wide clinical spectrum and nonspecific presentation. Accurate diagnosis is important because 25% of patients with acute myocarditis develop cardiomyopathy, and of those, approximately 5% per year require heart transplantation or die. Current guidelines for the recognition and treatment of the inflammatory cardiomy...

Background Despite recent advances in cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging, exams are still considered long and challenging from a technical perspective as well as demanding for patients who have to repeatedly perform multiple breath-holds (BH). Free-breathing (FB) sequences have been developed for distinct applications but they are usually performed in isolation within a traditional proto...

Heart transplantation is an option for children with complex congenital heart disease and cardiomyopathies. A patient's quality of life and long-term survival depend on successful management of the surgical complications and adverse side effects of immunosuppression. The purpose of this review was to summarize the practical management of postoperative care in this patient population and to make...

Abstract Background Leptin exerts both protective and deleterious effects on the heart; first occurs under hypoxia- or ischemia-associated damage, second is a pro-hypertrophic factor cardiomyocytes. Therefore, leptin could represent link between obesity cardiovascular diseases. The study aimed to investigate effect of leptin—the same concentration that frequently measured in induces cardiac hyp...