Japanese heart journal
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Japanese heart journal · Sep 1992
High prevalence of coronary artery spasm in survivors of cardiac arrest with no apparent heart disease.
The pathogenesis of cardiac arrest in the absence of any apparent heart disease remains unclear. Based on the hypothesis that coronary spasm may be a cause of cardiac arrest in the absence of apparent heart disease, ergonovine testing and/or electrophysiologic studies (EPS) were performed to evaluate the cause of cardiac arrest. Fourteen patients resuscitated from cardiac arrest had no apparent heart disease. ⋯ Patients with coronary spasm had a good prognosis when treated with a Ca-antagonist and/or long-acting nitrate. In conclusion, coronary spasm is the most frequent cause of cardiac arrest in cardiac arrest survivors with no apparent heart disease. Ergonovine testing should be performed to evaluate the cause of cardiac arrest when patients have no apparent heart disease.
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Japanese heart journal · May 1992
Review Case ReportsA case of right atrial mobile thrombus complicating multiple pulmonary emboli.
Right atrial thrombi are usually immobile. However, a mobile type mimicking a cardiac tumor, especially myxoma, has been described on rare occasions. We report here a case of atrial thrombus which was mobile in the cardiac chambers. ⋯ Two days after the administration of intravenous urokinase, the abnormal mass in the cardiac chambers was no longer seen on the echocardiogram. This was a rare case of mobile atrial thrombus associated with multiple pulmonary emboli. Thrombolytic therapy appeared to be effective in this case.
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Japanese heart journal · May 1991
Case ReportsNative valve bacterial endocarditis due to Staphylococcus epidermidis. A community acquired infection following an acute course.
Staphylococcus epidermidis (SE) is the leading pathogen of prosthetic valve endocarditis. At the same time it is a very rare cause of native valve endocarditis and it follows a clinical course and outcome similar to Streptococcal viridans endocarditis. We report here the case of a 41-year-old man with a community acquired SE endocarditis of a native aortic valve. Despite early surgical intervention, the case followed an acute and fatal course.
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Japanese heart journal · May 1990
Case ReportsA case of pure thrombus in a saphenous vein graft six years after bypass surgery.
A man showed a 90% narrowing at the origin of a saphenous vein graft (SVG) 6 years after bypass surgery. After 4 days of intravenous thrombolytic therapy the narrowing in the SVG disappeared completely. Thus, late stenosis of SVG can be caused by thrombosis not superimposed on organic narrowing.
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Although there are many reports on sudden cardiac arrest occurring outside the hospital, little is known about the precise prognostic factors that determine the outcome after cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Clinical information before and immediately after sudden cardiac arrest is frequently incomplete because the event occurs outside the hospital. We studied 90 consecutive patients with sudden and unexpected cardiac arrest who were resuscitated in the general ward of our hospital. ⋯ In the group of 25 patients in our study, there have been a total of 10 deaths (40%). Five of the 10 deaths resulted from recurrent cardiac arrest and 1 was a noncardiac death. There was a high rate of recurrence of cardiac arrest in the first year following resuscitation, especially among the cardiomyopathy patients.