Heart : official journal of the British Cardiac Society
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Women's Recovery from Sternotomy-Extension (WREST-E) study: examining long-term pain and discomfort following sternotomy and their predictors.
To examine incision and breast pain and discomfort, and their predictors in women 12 months following sternotomy. ⋯ Patients reported incision and breast pain and discomfort as long as 12 months post-sternotomy. Improved management of postoperative pain and discomfort up to at least 12 weeks following surgery may render reduced long-term pain and discomfort symptoms.
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It is accepted practice to prescribe beta-blockers in order to retard aortic dilatation and prevent aortic dissection and rupture in patients with Marfan syndrome. A critical review of the published pharmacological studies shows this practice to be based on limited evidence. The data from small clinical and experimental studies with surrogate end points suggest greater potential benefit from alternative drug regimens, and a recent experimental study showed that losartan may interrupt the mechanism of disease as well as deal with its functional consequences. It is now essential to perform large, collaborative, randomised controlled trials with clinical end points of new treatments in Marfan syndrome.