Dyspnea accounts for more than one-fourth of the hospital admissions from Emergency Department. Chronic conditions such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Congestive Heart Failure, and Asthma are being common etiologies. Less common etiologies include conditions such as valvular heart disease, pulmonary embolism, and right-to-left shunt (RLS) from patent foramen ovale (PFO). PFO is prese...

M itral stenosis (MS) is a common finding in rheumatic heart disease and can lead to enlargement of the left atrium and stasis of blood in this heart chamber. This can lead to an increased risk of clot formation in the left atrium and the left atrial appendage. In numerous studies to date, various precipitating factors for the formation of a clot inside the left atrium have been identified, inc...

Introduction To elucidate the expression of the atrial natriuretic polypeptide (ANP) gene in the ventricle of the human failing heart, we have measured ANP and ANP messenger RNA (ANPmRNA) levels in left ventricular aneurysm obtained at operation, biopsy specimens of left ventricles from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and autopsy samples of old myocardial infarction (OMI) and DCM hearts, and compa...

Relaxin is a member of the insulin family of polypeptides that is best known as a reproductive hormone. In an effort to elucidate the mechanism of action of relaxin we previously localized the specific binding sites of a 32P-labeled relaxin in the rat uterus and brain. These studies suggested that, in addition to its classical role in pregnancy, relaxin might have other physiological functions....

ATRIAL rupture of the heart is a dramatic event which leads inevitably to death. This paper reports the only case of atrial rupture among 5,900 autopsies at the Albany Hospital and summarizes the pertinent literature on atrial rupture as to etiology, diagnosis, pathologic physiology, sex, age, and treatment. A total of 79 cases of atrial rupture has been collected from the literature, classifie...

Echocardiographic features of a patient with sinus of Valsalva aneurysm rupture into the right atrium are described. The aneurysm presented as a dense echo-producing mass in the right atrium which descended into the tricuspid orifice during diastole and withdrew back into the atrium during ventricular systole. Pulmonic valve exho motion demonstrated early diastolic pulmonic valve opening indica...

Atrial flutter is the most frequent arrhythmia occurring in patients who have undergone orthotopic heart transplantation. We present a representative case of typical atrial flutter with counterclockwise rotation around the tricuspid ring in a female patient who had received an orthotopic heart transplant 13 years before. The arrhythmia pattern seen on the activation map (Figure 1) shows the con...

1. Isselbacher EM. Thoracic and abdominal aortic aneurysms. Circulation. 2005;111:816-28. 2. Pyatt JR, Osula S, Mushahwar SS, Somauroo JD, Charles RG. Extrinsic compression of the left atrium: an unusual complication of a type B aortic dissection. Int J Cardiol. 2001;79:89-90. 3. Vicente T, Pascual D, Pinar E, García A, López J, Valdés M. Compresión extrínseca de aurícula izquierda como present...

A 61-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of orthopnea and was diagnosed with heart failure with a continuous heart murmur. A transthoracic echocardiogram revealed turbulent flow from the right coronary sinus of Valsalva to the right atrium throughout the cardiac cycle. Aortography confirmed the presence of a shunt jet from the right coronary sinus of Valsalva to the right atrium. ...

Severe tricuspid valve insufficiency causes right atrial dilatation, venous congestion, and reduced atrial contractility, and may eventually lead to right heart failure. We report a case of a patient with severe tricuspid valve insufficiency, right heart failure, and a massively dilated right atrium. The enormously dilated atrium compressed the right lung, resulting in a radiographic appearance...