Cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy
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Cardiovasc Diagn Ther · Apr 2016
Efficacy and safety of vorapaxar for the prevention of adverse cardiac events in patients with coronary artery disease: a meta-analysis.
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Vorapaxar, a protease-activated receptor-1 (PAR-1) antagonist, is a novel antiplatelet agent that may provide us a new way in antithrombotic therapy. Several studies had been conducted to evaluate the efficacy of vorapaxar in the treatment of CAD, but the results were inconsistent. Here a meta-analysis was made to assess the efficacy and safety of vorapaxar in reducing adverse cardiac events in patients with CAD. ⋯ The result of this meta-analysis indicated that adding vorapaxar to the standard dual anti-platelet therapy may be efficient in reducing the incidence of major adverse cardiac events at the cost of increasing risk of bleeding events.
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Cardiovasc Diagn Ther · Apr 2016
Assessment of the effect of off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) surgery on right ventricle function using strain and strain rate imaging.
Right ventricle function significantly decreases after coronary artery bypass surgery; as one of the likely causes, such a condition is attributed to the use of cardiopulmonary pump (CPB). Because nowadays there is a tendency toward increasing use of off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) surgery, this study was conducted to evaluate the right ventricle function after this type of surgery using strain and strain rate imaging (SRI) echocardiography. ⋯ The findings of this study are consistent with other studies in this field and showed that after coronary artery surgery a decline occurs in right ventricular function. However, more detailed quantitative strain and SRI parameters which were measured in our study showed that at the early days after the OPCAB surgery there is a decline in the right ventricle function which is relatively reversible at longer intervals (3 months after surgery).