1,720,957 research outputs found
Relief of Myocardial Edema in Advanced Decompensated Heart Failure is Associated with Improved Left Ventricular Systolic and Diastolic Function
No full textRelief of Myocardial Edema in Advanced Decompensated Heart Failure is Associated with Improved Left Ventricular Systolic and Diastolic Function
No full textGlobal myocardial oedema in advanced decompensated heart failure
No full textTo use cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging with quantitative T2 mapping as surrogate for myocardial water content in patients with advanced decompensated heart failure (ADHF), compare these values with T2-values observed in chronic heart failure, and evaluate the change with decongestive therapy.
METHODS AND RESULTS:
Volumetric CMR measurements and quantitative T2 mapping were performed in 18 consecutive ADHF patients with clinical signs of volume overload. Eleven patients with stable heart failure were used as controls. Vasodilator therapy and diuretics were administered to achieve a pulmonary arterial wedge pressure (PAWP) of <18 mmHg and central venous pressure (CVP) of <12 mmHg, after which CMR was repeated. ADHF patients (62 ± 12 years; 89% male; left ventricular ejection fraction 23 ± 8%) presented with low cardiac index (2.08 ± 0.59 L/min/m2), high PAWP (25 ± 7 mmHg), and high CVP (14 ± 5 mmHg). After decongestion, the patients had a significant increase in cardiac index (+0.41 ± 0.53 L/min/m2; P = 0.005) and decreases in both PAWP (-9 ± 6 mmHg; P < 0.001) and CVP (-6 ± 5 mmHg; P < 0.001). At baseline, global left ventricular T2-values were higher in ADHF patients compared with controls (59.5 ± 4.6 vs. 54.7 ± 2.2 ms, respectively; P = 0.001). After decongestion, T2-values fell significantly to 55.9 ± 5.1 ms (P = 0.001), comparable with controls (P = 0.580). In contrast, psoas muscle T2-values were similar at baseline (38.6 ± 4.4 ms) vs. after decongestion (37.8 ± 4.8 ms; P = 0.397). Each 1 ms decrease in global left ventricular T2-value during decongestion was associated with a 1.14 ± 0.40 mmHg decrease in PAWP (P = 0.013), after correction for age and gender.
CONCLUSION:
Patients presenting with ADHF and volume overload have increased global left ventricular-but not psoas muscle-T2-values, which decrease with successful decongestion. Relief of myocardial oedema correlates with haemodynamic unloading.F.V. and P.B. are supported by a Ph.D. fellowship of the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO). F.V., P.B., and W.M. are researchers for the Limburg Clinical Research Program (LCRP) UHasselt-ZOL-Jessa, supported by the foundation Limburg Sterk Merk (LSM), Hasselt University, Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg, and Jessa Hospital
One-year clinical and computed tomography follow-up after implantation of bioresorbable vascular scaffolds in patients with coronary chronic total occlusions
No full textTo assess the safety and efficacy of everolimus-eluting bioresorbable scaffolds (BRS) in the treatment of chronic total occlusions (CTO) using noninvasive multislice computed tomography (MSCT) angiography at one-year follow-up
Prospective Study Comparing Different Indirect Methods to Measure Portal Pressure
No full textPurpose: To compare the accuracy of wedged hepatic venous pressure (WHVP) measurement with use of an end-hole catheter or an occlusion-balloon catheter versus direct portal pressure (PP) measurement in patients with cirrhosis with sinusoidal portal hypertension and to investigate the factors that affect the results of these indirect measurements. Materials and Methods: In a cohort of 174 patients with cirrhosis referred for transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt creation, indirect PP was measured with an end-hole catheter and an occlusion-balloon catheter placed in the right hepatic vein. Direct PP was measured by a pigtail catheter in the main branch of the portal vein. Results: PP was more accurately estimated by the occlusion-balloon technique: mean WHVP measurements were 25.5 mm Hg +/- 7.9 and 30.6 mm Hg +/- 13.9, respectively, for the occlusion-balloon and end-hole catheter techniques, and the direct PP measurement was 25.0 mm Hg +/- 7.0. The median absolute differences between direct and the indirect methods were 6.0 mm Hg with the end-hole catheter and 2.0 mm Hg with the occlusion-balloon catheter (P < .0001, signed-rank test). Relative to direct PP measurements, the occlusion-balloon technique overestimated pressures in cases of higher Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) scores (Spearman rho = -0.24; P = .0005). Conclusions: Compared with direct PP measurements, agreement was clearly higher for indirect WHVP measurement with occlusion-balloon catheters versus end-hole catheters. However, in patients with a high MELD score, there was an overestimation of PP with the occlusion-balloon method
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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