AIMS The aim of our study was to evaluate the influence of left ventricular (LV) diastolic filling impairment on postoperative results in patients (pts) with low LV ejection fraction (EF) (<35%) undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). METHODS The study covered 56 patients (mean age 58.9 +/- 17.1 years). Two dimensional Doppler echocardiographic investigations were performed pre- an...

In 1988, Appleton et al. (1) investigated the relation between transmitral Doppler flow dynamics and invasively determined measurements of pressure and flow in a variety of heart diseases. Based on their findings, three abnormal transmitral flow patterns by Doppler echocardiography have been proposed: 1) impaired relaxation, 2) pseudonormal and 3) restrictive patterns that reflect the pathophys...

Using echocardiography, various indices of left ventricular function were studied in a group of 11 patients with small posterior pericardial effusion. The only index of left ventricular function that was abnormal in this group was maximum diastolic endocardial velocity (DEVM), a measure of left ventricular relaxation. When evaluated as a group, DEVM was significantly decreased in the presence o...

OBJECTIVE Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) is expressed in arteries during inflammation and may contribute to vascular dysfunction. Effects of gene transfer of iNOS to carotid arteries were examined in vitro in the absence of systemic inflammation to allow examination of mechanisms by which iNOS impairs contraction and relaxation. METHODS AND RESULTS After gene transfer of iNOS with an ...

Impaired endothelial function, which is dysregulated in diabetes, also precedes hypertension. We hypothesized that in Type 2 diabetes, the impaired endothelium-dependent relaxation is due to a loss of endothelium-derived hyperpolarization (EDH) that is regulated by impaired ion channel function. Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF), Zucker heterozygote, and homozygote lean control rats were used as the ...

Heaps, Cristine L., Michael Sturek, Julie A. Rapps, M. Harold Laughlin, and Janet L. Parker. Exercise training restores adenosine-induced relaxation in coronary arteries distal to chronic occlusion. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 278: H1984–H1992, 2000.—We previously reported that canine collateral-dependent coronary arteries exhibit impaired relaxation to adenosine but not sodium nitroprussid...

Endothelium-dependent relaxation of mesenteric resistance arteries of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and normotensive Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats was studied. Acetylcholine-induced relaxation of SHR vessels precontracted with 10 microM norepinephrine was endothelium dependent and attenuated compared with WKY vessels. The impaired response of SHR vessels was normalized by inhibition of cyclo...