BACKGROUND Cardiac resynchronization therapy using bi-ventricular pacing is proven effective in the management of heart failure (HF) with a wide QRS-complex. In the absence of QRS prolongation, however, device-based resynchronization is reported unsuitable. As an alternative, the present study tests a regenerative cell-based approach in the setting of narrow QRS-complex HF. METHODS AND RESULT...

Mechanical dyssynchrony along with its role in cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has been studied for over 10 years now. Although there are ‘believers’ in imaging techniques and echocardiography specifically, there are no recommendations for their use in clinical practice or guidelines for CRT. QRS duration remains the gold-standard for selecting patients for CRT and predicting their resp...

BACKGROUND Cardiac electromechanical dyssynchrony causes regional disparities in workload, oxygen consumption, and myocardial perfusion within the left ventricle. We hypothesized that such dyssynchrony also induces region-specific alterations in the myocardial transcriptome that are corrected by cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). METHODS AND RESULTS Adult dogs underwent left bundle bran...

Objective: Diabetes mellitus is an important cause of heart failure deployment of left ventricular mechanical dyssynchrony. Nuclear cardiology phase analysis is an accurate, repeatable and reproducible modality for measurement LV dyssynchrony .The aim of study was assessment of phase analysis parameter including Standard deviation (SD) and band width (BW) in diabetic patient with normal MPI com...

Heart failure remains a major cardiovascular health problem, afflicting 22 million individuals worldwide and approximately 5 million persons in the United States alone. Management of patients with this problem represents the largest single expense to Medicare. A common feature predictive of adverse clinical outcomes in patients with congestive heart failure is prolongation of the QRS duration. ...

AIMS The Speckle Tracking and Resynchronization (STAR) study used a prospective multi-centre design to test the hypothesis that speckle-tracking echocardiography can predict response to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). METHODS AND RESULTS We studied 132 consecutive CRT patients with class III and IV heart failure, ejection fraction (EF) < or =35%, and QRS > or =120 ms from three inter...

Right heart failure in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PH) is associated with mechanical ventricular dyssynchrony, which leads to impaired right ventricular (RV) function and, by adverse diastolic interaction, to impaired left ventricular (LV) function as well. However, therapies aiming to restore synchrony by pacing are currently not available. In this proof-of-principle study, we determined ...

21 Right heart failure in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PH) is associated with mechanical 22 ventricular dyssynchrony, which leads to impaired right ventricular (RV) function, and by 23 adverse diastolic interaction to impaired left ventricular (LV) function as well. However, 24 therapies aiming to restore synchrony by pacing are currently not available. In this proof-of25 principle study, w...

BACKGROUND Left ventricular (LV) mechanical dyssynchrony can lead to impairment of LV function and is associated with adverse clinical outcomes in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients. The impact of LV dyssynchrony on exercise capacity (EC) in patients with CAD was investigated. METHODS AND RESULTS An echocardiographic examination with tissue Doppler imaging and exercise treadmill testing i...

BACKGROUND We have previously reported strain dyssynchrony index assessed by two-dimensional speckle tracking strain, and a marker of both dyssynchrony and residual myocardial contractility, can predict response to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). A newly developed three-dimensional (3-D) speckle tracking system can quantify endocardial area change ratio (area strain), which coupled wit...