Cardiology Journal 2011, tom 18, nr 2

The study by Młynarska et al. [1] expands upon two previous studies [2, 3] evaluating the ability of multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) imaging to visualize the coronary sinus (CS) and its branches in patients undergoing placement of a cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) system...

Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD) is a rare disease classically inherited in an X-linked recessive fashion. It is characterized by: early contractures of the elbow and posterior cervical muscles with joint stiffening and dislocation, progressive muscle weakness beginning in childhood, atrophy primarily in humeroperoneal muscles, and cardiac involvement...

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is defined as sudden, unexpected, witnessed or unwitnessed, non-traumatic and non-drowning deaths in patients with epilepsy, with or without evidence of a seizure and excluding documented status epilepticus, in which a post-mortem examination does not reveal a toxicological or anatomical cause of death [1]. The incidence of SUDEP has been estimated from 0.5–1.4/1,000 person-years in people with treated epilepsy, and 9/1,000 person-years in candidates for epilepsy surgery [2]...

A 63 year-old female presented with new-onset expressive aphasia three months after a dual-chamber implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) was placed for ventricular tachycardia and high-grade atrioventricular block. She was transferred to our institution for further evaluation...

An 81 year-old male with a history of atrial fibrillation, hypertension, and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) underwent a routine pre-operative evaluation for forthcoming total knee arthroplasty. His cardiac history included the insertion of a permanent single chamber pacemaker (Medtronic KSR 703 with a Medtronic 5092 bipolar lead) in 2000 for symptomatic atrial fibrillation with slow ventricular response...

We report the case of a 72 year-old man with mild shortness of breath who was referred for computed tomography angiography (CTA). Eleven years before, he had undergone triple vessel coronary artery bypass grafting [left internal thoracic artery to the left anterior descending artery, a saphenous vein graft to the first obtuse marginal branch of the left circumflex artery, and right gastroepiploic artery (GEA) to the right coronary artery] in another hospital...

Inferior acute myocardial infarction (AMI) represents 40–50% of all AMIs. The culprit lesion is almost exclusively either in the right coronary artery (RCA) or the left circumflex coronary artery (LCx). Without doubt, the electrocardiogram (ECG) plays a crucial role in identifying the infarct-related artery because it is cheap and universally available...

The development of an implantable cardiac defibrillator was pioneered at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore by a team including Michel Mirowski, Morton Mower, and William Staewen [1]. Parallel developmental work was carried out almost simultaneously by Schuder et al. [2, 3] at the University of Missouri...

Sudden death is defined as natural (non-traumatic) death that occurs within an hour of the onset of acute symptoms or during sleep [1]. Although sudden non-traumatic deaths are frequently attributed to cardiac disease, autopsy studies in unselectedsubjects suggest that about one third of sudden deaths have non-cardiac causes (eg: intracranial bleed, pulmonary embolism, acute asthma) [2]...

Post-surgical aortic pseudoaneurysms are rare, albeit disastrous, complications in 0.5% of instances of cardiac surgery and they pose high mortality risks [1, 2]. As set out in previous reports and a large literature review by Dumont et al. [2],  postsurgical aortic pseudoaneurysms often occur in the wake of procedures that utilize vascular prostheses or biosthetic grafts such as the Bental procedure [2–4]...