1,721,041 research outputs found

    Cardiac herniation: A practical review in the emergency setting

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    Introduction: Albeit described since 1948, cardiac herniations still represent an under-recognized clinical entity in the general population, due to their difficult diagnostic detection and to a limited knowledge in clinical practice. This paper aims to provide an updated overview focusing on definition, clinical presentation and diagnostic work-up of cardiac herniations, as well as on further findings concerning prognoses and available therapeutic options. Methods: This narrative review was performed by following the standard methods of the Cochrane Collaboration and the PRISMA statement. A Pubmed search was conducted using the following keywords (in Title and/or Abstract): (“cardiac” OR “heart”) AND (“herniation” OR “hernia”). All available high quality resources containing information on epidemiology, etiopathogenesis, clinical findings, diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies, were included in our search. Results: Causative agents, location and the degree of haemodynamic impairment were found to play a pivotal role in defining the patient's natural history and prognostic outcomes, and in detecting potential associated clinical conditions which may significantly impact on first line decision-making strategy. Conclusions: Cardiac herniations remain a rare and life-threatening pathological injury, whose knowledge is still very limited in clinical practice. Clinicians should be aware of such a clinical entity and of its wide spectrum of clinical manifestations, particularly in high-risk subsets of patients, in order to provide the most appropriate decision-making strategy and timely therapeutic approach

    Cardiac Outpouchings: Definitions, Differential Diagnosis, and Therapeutic Approach

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    Background and Aims. Cardiac outpouchings encounter a series of distinct congenital or acquired entities (i.e. aneurysms, pseudoaneurysms, diverticula, and herniations), whose knowledge is still poorly widespread in clinical practice. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview focusing on definition, differential diagnosis, and prognostic outcomes of cardiac outpouchings, as well as further insights on therapeutic options, in order to assist physicians in the most appropriate decision-making. Methods. The material reviewed was obtained by the following search engines: MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, Google Scholar, and Clinical Trials databases, from January 1966 until March 2021. We searched for the following keywords (in title and/or abstract): (“cardiac” OR “heart”) AND (“outpouching” OR “outpouch” OR “aneurysm” OR “pseudoaneurysm” OR “false aneurysm” OR “diverticulum” OR “herniation”). Review articles, original articles, case series, and case reports with literature review were included in our search. Data from patients with congenital or acquired cardiac outpouchings, from prenatal to geriatric age range, were investigated. Results. Out of the 378 papers initially retrieved, 165 duplicates and 84 records in languages other than English were removed. Among the 129 remaining articles, 76 were included in our research material, on the basis of the following inclusion criteria: (a) papers pertaining to the research topic; (b) peer-reviewed articles; (c) using standardized diagnostic criteria; and (d) reporting raw prevalence data. Location, morphologic features, wall motion abnormalities, and tissue characterization were found to have a significant impact in recognition and differential diagnosis of cardiac outpouchings as well as to play a significant role in defining their natural history and prognostic outcomes. Conclusions. Careful recognition of cardiac outpouchings remains a diagnostic challenge in clinical practice. Due to a broad cluster of distinctive and heterogeneous entities, their knowledge and timely recognition play a pivotal role in order to provide the most appropriate clinical management and therapeutic approach

    Prognostic value of cardiac CT

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    In the past decades, coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) has become a powerful tool in the management of coronary artery disease. The diagnostic and prognostic value of CCTA has been extensively demonstrated in both large observational studies and clinical trials among stable chest pain patients. The quantification of coronary artery calcium score (CACS) is a well-established predictor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in asymptomatic subjects. Besides CACS, the main strength of CCTA is the accurate assessment of the individual total atherosclerotic plaque burden, which holds important prognostic information. In addition, CCTA, by providing detailed information on coronary plaque morphology and composition with identification of specific high-risk plaque features, may further improve the risk stratification beyond the assessment of coronary stenosis. The development of new CCTA applications, such as stress myocardial CT perfusion and computational fluids dynamic applied to standard CCTA to derive CT-based fractional flow reserve (FFR) values have shown promising results to guide revascularization, potentially improving clinical outcomes in stable chest pain patients. In this review, starting from the role of CACS and moving beyond coronary stenosis, we evaluate the existing evidence of the prognostic effectiveness of the CCTA strategy in real-world clinical practice

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Accuratezza diagnostica della Cardio TC a doppia sorgente di 3^ generazione con protocollo FLASH per la rilevazione di stenosi coronariche in pazienti candidati a procedura TAVI

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    Evaluate the performance of cardio TC performed by third generation Dual Source equipment and thoraco-abdominal FLASH protocol for the evaluation of coronary stenosis in a population of patients candidates for TAV

    Valutazione delle arterie coronarie mediante TC a doppia sorgente di 2^ e 3^ generazione: qualità d’immagine e dose di radiazioni in pazienti non selezionati con protocollo FLASH ad alto pitch.

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    To evaluate the performance of a high pitch FLASH protocol with second and third generation dual source devices in the evaluation of coronary arteries in an unselected population of patients undergoing thoracic or thoracic-abdominal CT angiography (primarily non-coronary exams
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