The international journal of cardiovascular imaging
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Int J Cardiovasc Imaging · Mar 2008
ReviewRole of cardiac computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging in the evaluation of acute chest pain in the emergency department.
Evaluation of patients presenting with chest pain to the emergency department remains a challenging task because of a variety of etiologies that range from benign to potentially fatal. Although majority of patients do not have myocardial ischemia as the cause of their presentation, the clinical work up can be time consuming, costly and inconclusive. Recent technical advances in cardiac computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging have led to better diagnostic accuracy in evaluating patients with chest pain. In this paper, we review the role of cardiac computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging in evaluating patients with chest pain in the emergency department.
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Int J Cardiovasc Imaging · Mar 2008
The role of N terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide in the evaluation of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction: correlation with echocardiographic indexes in hypertensive patients.
The utility of N-Terminal pro Brain Natriuretic Peptide (NT-proBNP) and Brain Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) for detecting left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction in hypertensive patients without heart failure symptoms is unclear. In this study, we investigated the relation between NT-proBNP plasma levels and LV diastolic dysfunction in hypertensive patients without systolic dysfunction. ⋯ The assessment of the blood concentration of NT-proBNP is of potential value for identification of those patients with hypertension to detect early cardiovascular changes, especially LV diastolic dysfunction.