Cardiology Journal 2010, tom 17, nr 4

Transcatheter treatment has become the method of choice for treating many heart defects. Recently, Cardio-O-Fix occluder (COF) — a new, self-expandable nitinol wire- -mesh device very similar to the Amplatzer device — has been introduced into clinical practice. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first publication related to its application...

A 69 year-old woman with a history of hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus and chronic renal insufficiency presented with generalized weakness and near syncope. In the emergency room, she was awake, alert and her physical examination was otherwise unremarkable. She was bradycardic (45 bpm) and hypotensive (85/55 mm Hg) and a 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) showed third degree atrioventricular (AV) block...

Physical training for chronic heart failure (CHF) patients is well known in the scientific realm, although there are many different methods of physical exercise prescribed and different ways of monitoring such training...

Recently, three large randomized clinical trials: REVERSE, MADIT-CRT, and RAFT were completed aiming to determine the effects of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) or CRT with defibrillator (CRT-D) in less advanced, predominantly NYHA class II heart failure (HF) patients. The REVERSE trial, significantly smaller than the other two trials, could be considered as a phase II study indicating that mild-to-moderate HF patients show symptomatic and hemodynamic improvement in response to CRT...

Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) has become an indispensible imaging technique for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with cardiovascular diseases. Technical advances in the past have rendered CMR unique in the evaluation of cardiovascular anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology due to its unique ability to produce high resolution tomographic images of the human heart and vessels in any arbitrary orientation, with soft tissue contrast that is superior to competing imaging modalities without the use of ionizing radiation...

I would like to comment on the tracing published in Volume 17, page 415, by Dr. Elisabeth Kaiser et al. [1]. The title of the mentioned case is: ‘Ebstein´s anomaly with Brugada-like electrocardiogram pattern: a critical view’. Such a title would lead the reader to think we will find another phenocopy with ST segment elevation in right precordial leads ≥ 2 mm followed by negative T waves in V1 and V2...

We gratefully receive the commendations of Kardesoglu et al. [1] in the Letter to the Editor entitled ‘Accurate assessment of autonomic imbalance in heart failure’. The authors highlight the value of a simple and reliable test for the prognosis and treatment planning of heart failure (HF) patients...

Diastolic heart failure (HF) is also referred to as HF with preserved left ventricular systolic function. The distinction between systolic and diastolic HFs is a pathophysiological one and isolated forms of left ventricular dysfunction are rarely observed...

The widespread use of primary coronary intervention (PCI) has significantly improved the prognosis of men presenting with acute coronary syndromes, but the cardiovascular event rate among women has either levelled off or increased. The purpose of the present prospective study was to compare the clinical outcome of women and men presenting with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing primary PCI with concomitant usage of GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors...

We read an exciting study entitled ‘Evaluation of patients with autonomic imbalance in heart failure: A preliminary study of the pupillomotor function’ by Keivanidou et al. [1] in one of the current issues. The authors observed an alteration in the pupillomotor functions in patients with heart failure (HF) compared to normal subjects, and they suggested these changes might reflect the activation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS)...