Previous studies have reported that high fat feeding in mild to moderate heart failure (HF) results in the preservation of contractile function. Recent evidence has suggested that preventing the switch from fatty acid to glucose metabolism in HF may ameliorate dysfunction, and insulin resistance is one potential mechanism for regulating substrate utilization. This study was designed to determin...

BACKGROUND Preservation of myocardial perfusion during general anesthesia is likely important in patients at risk for perioperative cardiac complications. Data related to the influence of general anesthesia on the normal myocardial circulation are limited. In this study, we investigated myocardial microcirculatory responses to pharmacological vasodilation and sympathetic stimulation during gene...

Vascular endothelium plays a critical role in the control of blood flow by producing vasoactive factors to regulate vascular tone. Ion channels, in particular, K(+) channels and Ca(2+)-permeable channels in endothelial cells, are essential to the production and function of endothelium-derived vasoactive factors. Impairment of coronary endothelial function occurs in open heart surgery that may r...

Despite major advances made over the last decade, mortality following acute myocardial infarction (MI) is still high even for patients treated with the "front-loaded" recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (rt-PA) regimen: 30-day mortality is 6.3%, and it is associated with fatal cerebral hemorrhage in 1.5%. Further improvement of short- and long-term prognosis can be achieved if infusio...

Much has been written during the past decade regarding the anaesthetic management of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). The early literature on this topic focused upon care of patients undergoing cardiopulrnonary bypass for surgical correction of their cardiac conditions. However, more recent discussions have turned toward the management, during non-cardiac surgery, of patients whose ...

Eleven patients with anterior myocardial infarction less than six hours old underwent intraaortic balloon pumping (IABP) in an attempt to control injury. Direct hemodynamic measurements excluded shock. Response to therapy was judged individually by comparison to a one-hour pretreatment period. There was no parallel control group. Five patients responded with an 84% fall in ST elevation in one h...

Cardiovascular progenitor cells (CPCs) are a promising cell source for cardiac regenerative therapy because of their ability for self-renewal and differentiation into various cardiovascular cell types beneficial for myocardial repair: cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle cells, and endothelial cells. Previous evaluations of exogenously derived CPCs have focused mainly on their capacity for trilineage ...

Objective: to evaluate the technical feasibility as well functional, metabolic and structural integrity of donor heart myocardium after 4 hours direct intracoronary oxygen persufflation in an experiment. Materials methods. Mini-pig siblings aged 3 months with a body weight 23–36 kg were used experimental model. In control group (n = 8), hearts cold preserved by injecting 2 liters Bretschneider ...

Autophagy is necessary for the degradation of long-lasting proteins and nonfunctional organelles, and is activated to promote cellular survival. However, overactivation of autophagy may deplete essential molecules and organelles responsible for cellular survival. Lifelong calorie restriction by 40% has been shown to increase the cardiac expression of autophagic markers, which suggests that it m...