Cardiology Journal 2011, tom 18, nr 1

Cardiology Journal enters its 18th year of serving the cardiology community. The journal was established by Prof. Grażyna Świątecka from Gdańsk, Poland, in 1994 initially as a journal focused on pacing and electrophysiology under the name “Elektrofizjologia i Stymulacja Serca (Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology)” addressing the needs of the Pacing and Electrophysiology Section of the Polish Cardiac Society...

The use of meta-analysis in medicine is widespread nowadays, particularly in the field ofinterventional cardiology. Meta-analysis is a statistical approach aiming to combine date from a large number of patients from randomized clinical studies and/or non-randomized registries so as to obtain a pooled estimate of the results and to answer specific research questions...

QRS duration and morphology, evaluated via a standard 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG), represent an opportunity to derive useful prognostic information regarding the risk of subsequent cardiac events or therapeutic outcomes. Prolonged QRS duration, and the presence of intraventricular conduction abnormalities, usually indicate the presence of changes in the myocardium due to underlying heart disease...

Our study set out to determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms and variables that influence its presence in patients hospitalized for heart failure. Depression is associated with a substantially increased risk of developing heart failure in individuals at risk, and has been related to adverse outcomes in patients with established heart failure...

Fractal analysis has been shown to be capable of characterizing irregular time series generated in non-linear systems. Fluctuations in skin flow signals have a fractal nature, but to date there has been no analysis of subjects with hypertension. The aim of this study is to assess the fractal dimensions of skin microcirculation flows in subjects with a familial predisposition or newly diagnosed hypertension...

External, rectilinear biphasic cardioversion (RBC), as against monophasic cardioversion, requires lower energy and has been documented to be more effective in restoringsinus rhythm in atrial fibrillation (AF). There is, however, limited data on the optimal protocol of low energy RBC in atrial flutter (AFl) and regular atrial tachyarrhythmias (AT)...

Studies have investigated the influence of neuromuscular electrostimulation on the exercise/muscle capacity of patients with heart failure (HF), but the hemodynamic overload has never been investigated. The aim of our study was to evaluate the heart rate (HR), systolic and diastolic blood pressures in one session of strength exercises with and without neuromuscular electrostimulation (quadriceps) in HF patients and in healthy subjects...

Slow heart rate recovery (HRR) after exercise is considered to represent impaired parasympathetic tone and to be a predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, but the independent value of abnormal HRR in predicting the presence and severity of coronary artery disease (CAD) is unknown...

Homocysteine is considered to be a risk factor, or an indicator of risk, for the development of cardiovascular disease. Little data is available on its significance in patients with previous myocardial infarction...

A subgroup of patients suffering from Lyme disease (LD) may initially respond to antibiotics only to later develop a syndrome of fatigue, joint pain and cognitive dysfunction referred to as ‘post treatment LD syndrome’. We report on a series of patients who developed autonomic dysfunction in the form of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS)...