The American journal of cardiology
-
Impact of nephropathy after percutaneous coronary intervention and a method for risk stratification.
Radiocontrast-induced nephropathy (RCIN) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is associated with grave consequences, but risk stratification of patients has not been well elucidated. This analysis derived a time-insensitive score to predict the risk of RCIN after PCI. A derivation cohort (1993 to 1998) and a validation cohort (1999 to 2002) comprised 20,479 patients who underwent PCI. ⋯ Propensity score analysis showed that patients who developed RCIN after PCI, irrespective of the need for hemodialysis, had higher in-hospital rates of major adverse cardiac events (odds ratio 15, 95% confidence interval 11 to 20, p <0.0001). RCIN occurred in 2.0% of PCI patients and was associated with a 15-fold increase in adverse cardiac events. The RCIN risk score was a clinical assessment tool with excellent predictive ability in identifying the larger population at risk for nephropathy in whom preventative strategies are indicated.
-
Comparative Study
Comparison of the rectilinear biphasic waveform with the monophasic damped sine waveform for external cardioversion of atrial fibrillation and flutter.
External cardioversion using the monophasic damped sine (MDS) waveform is successful 70% to 94% of the time when using up to 360 J. The rectilinear biphasic (RLB) defibrillator has been shown to be superior in efficacy to the MDS waveform in atrial cardioversion in a small randomized study. This larger, retrospective study compares the results of the RLB waveform with those of the MDS waveform for cardioversion of atrial fibrillation (AF) and atrial flutter in a large cohort of patients. ⋯ Multivariate analyses demonstrated that underlying clinical conditions or use of antiarrhythmic drugs does not significantly affect overall success rates. Our results from >4,000 procedures confirmed and extended those of the previous report by showing a very high success rate for cardioversion of AF and atrial flutter using the RLB waveform. The MDS waveform was equally effective for atrial flutter but significantly less effective in terminating AF.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Evaluation of isoproterenol in patients undergoing resuscitation for out-of-hospital asystolic cardiac arrest (the Israel Resuscitation with Isoproterenol Study Prospective Randomized Clinical Trial).
The Israel Resuscitation with Isoproterenol Study included 79 consecutive patients with witnessed out-of-hospital asystolic cardiac arrest who were resuscitated with epinephrine and atropine and randomized to receive additional isoproterenol or no isoproterenol. The rate of return of spontaneous circulation and survival to hospital admission did not differ in patients receiving standard therapy and those receiving additional isoproterenol.
-
Subsequent pregnancy in 6 patients with previous peripartum cardiomyopathy resulted in reduction of ejection fraction by >10% in 5 patients at 1 month postpartum. Two patients with impaired ejection fraction at onset of subsequent pregnancy died 3 months postpartum due to heart failure despite optimal medical therapy. Deterioration of left ventricular function occurred uniformly postpartum and was accompanied by elevation of tumor necrosis factor-alpha plasma levels from 2.4 +/- 1.1 pg/ml at onset of subsequent pregnancy to 6.2 +/- 2.4 pg/ml at 1 month postpartum.