AIM Patients with Marfan syndrome have an increased risk of life-threatening aortic complications, mostly preceded by aortic dilatation. Treatment with losartan, an angiotensin-II receptor-1 blocker, may reduce aortic dilatation rate in Marfan patients. METHODS AND RESULTS In this multicentre, open-label, randomized controlled trial with blinded assessments, we compared losartan treatment wit...

Objectives: We evaluated the efficacy of balloon dilatation after bilateral pulmonary artery banding for the treatment of severe congenital heart disease that depends on patent ductus arteriosus for systemic circulation. Background: Neonatal cardiopulmonary bypass can cause brain injury, which may result in a severely impaired neurodevelopmental outcome. Hence, we perform bilateral pulmonary ar...

After bronchoconstriction, deep inspiration (DI) causes dilatation followed by airway re-narrowing. Re-narrowing may be faster in asthmatic than nonasthmatic subjects. This study investigated the relationship between re-narrowing and the magnitude of both DI-induced dilatation and the volume-dependence of respiratory system resistance (Rrs) during tidal breathing. In 25 asthmatic and 18 nonasth...

A variety of noncardiac conditions mimic the electrocardiographic changes ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Therefore, a physician must maintain high index suspicion when evaluating ST-segment elevation (STE). We present case epigastric pain secondary to ileus and gastric dilatation masquerading as anterolateral STEMI on an electrocardiogram (ECG). The STE promptly resolved following ...

the major complication of kawasaki disease is coronary artery dilatation and aneurysm. it occurs in approximately 15-25% of untreated children with kawasaki disease. early diagnosis and treatment with intravenous immune globulin (ivig) and aspirin (asa) can reduce the incidence of coronary artery abnormality to 2%-5%. we report one case of atypical kawasaki disease with multiple giant coronary ...