Despite the spread of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) emergency intervention networks, inequalities in healthcare access still have a negative impact on cardiovascular prognosis. The ...Family Income Ratio of Barcelona (FIRB) is a socioeconomic status (SES) indicator that is annually calculated. Our aim was to evaluate whether SES had an effect on mortality and complications in patients managed by the "Codi IAM" network in Barcelona.
This is a cohort study with 3,322 consecutive patients with STEMI treated in Barcelona from 2010 to 2016. Collected data include treatment delays, clinical and risk factor characteristics, and SES. The patients were assigned to three SES groups according to FIRB score. A logistic regression analysis was conducted to estimate the adjusted effect of SES on 30-day mortality, 30-day composite cardiovascular end point, and 1-year mortality.
The mean age of the patients was 65 ± 13% years, 25% were women, and 21% had diabetes mellitus. Patients with low SES were younger, more often hypertensive, diabetic, dyslipidemic (
< 0.003), had longer reperfusion delays (
< 0.03) compared to participants with higher SES. Low SES was not independently associated with 30-day mortality (OR: 0.95;9 5% CI: 0.7-1.3), 30-day cardiovascular composite end point (OR: 1.03; 95% CI: 0.84-1.26), or 1-year all-cause mortality (HR: 1.09; 95% CI: 0.76-1.56).
Although the low-SES patients with STEMI in Barcelona city were younger, had worse clinical profiles, and had longer revascularization delays, their 30-day and 1-year outcomes were comparable to those of the higher-SES patients.
Patients with severe mitral regurgitation (MR) after myocardial infarction (MI) have an increased risk of mortality. Transcatheter mitral valve repair may therefore be a suitable therapy. However, ...data on clinical outcomes of patients in an acute setting are scarce, especially those with reduced left ventricle (LV) dysfunction. We conducted a multinational, collaborative data analysis from 21 centers for patients who were, within 90 days of acute MI, treated with MitraClip due to severe MR. The cohort was divided according to median left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF)-35%. Included in the study were 105 patients. The mean age was 71 ± 10 years. Patients in the LVEF < 35% group were younger but with comparable Euroscore II, multivessel coronary artery disease, prior MI and coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Procedure time was comparable and acute success rate was high in both groups (94% vs. 90%,
= 0.728). MR grade was significantly reduced in both groups along with an immediate reduction in left atrial V-wave, pulmonary artery pressure and improvement in New York Heart Association (NYHA) class. In-hospital and 1-year mortality rates were not significantly different between the two groups (11% vs. 7%,
= 0.51 and 19% vs. 12%,
= 0.49) and neither was the 3-month re-hospitalization rate. In conclusion, MitraClip intervention in patients with acute severe functional mitral regurgitation (FMR) due to a recent MI in an acute setting is safe and feasible. Even patients with severe LV dysfunction may benefit from transcatheter mitral valve intervention and should not be excluded.
Data on the incidence, associated factors, and prognosis of pericardial effusion (PE) in patients with infective endocarditis (IE) are scarce. Patients with native valve IE were prospectively ...followed in our center from 1990 to 2007. A logistic regression analysis was performed to identify independent variables associated with PE and mortality. We included 479 episodes of IE from 459 patients (70% men, mean age 51 years). Small-to-moderate PE was observed in 109 episodes (23%) and large-to-very large PE was observed in 9 episodes (2%). Patients with small-to-moderate PE had a greater prevalence of intravenous drug use (38% vs 23%) and more frequent right-sided IE than patients without PE (33% vs 17%). Patients with large-to-very large PE had a higher rate of systemic emboli (22% vs 18%) and periannular abscess (22% vs 6%) than patients without PE. Renal failure was associated with a higher risk of PE (odds ratio OR 2.1, 95% confidence interval CI 1.3 to 3.3); age was associated with a lower risk of PE (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.97 to 0.99). One-year mortality of patients with IE with large-to-very large PE was higher than that of patients with small-to-moderate and absence of PE (56%, 18%, and 24%, respectively, p = 0.033). Large-to-very large PE increases the 1-year mortality of IE (OR 3.0, 95% CI 1.2 to 7.9). In conclusion, renal failure and younger age are associated with a higher risk of PE. Large-to-very large PE was associated with an increase in 1-year mortality.
Transcatheter mitral valve repair, particularly edge-to-edge leaflet repair, is a well-established alternative for patients with severe primary mitral regurgitation (MR) considered at high or ...prohibitive surgical risk. More recently, transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) has emerged as a potential therapeutic option for the treatment of severe MR. TMVR may offer some advantages over transcatheter repair by providing a more complete and reproducible MR reduction. Several devices are under preclinical and clinical evaluation, and the early experience with more than 100 patients has demonstrated the feasibility of TMVR. In this review, we describe the TMVR systems currently in development and the results obtained from early clinical experiences. We also discuss the main challenges in and future perspectives on this emerging field. Future studies with a much larger number of patients are needed to provide consistent safety and efficacy data on each of the TMVR systems.
Device-related thrombus (DRT) after left atrial appendage (LAA) closure is infrequent but correlates with an increased risk of thromboembolism. Therefore, the search for DRT predictors is a topic of ...interest. In the literature, multivariable methods have been used achieving non-consistent results, and to the best of our knowledge, machine learning techniques have not been used yet for thrombus detection after LAA occlusion. Our aim is to compare both methodologies with respect to predictive power and the search for predictors of DRT. To this end, a multicenter study including 1150 patients who underwent LAA closure was analyzed. Two lines of experiments were performed: with and without resampling. Multivariate and machine learning methodologies were applied to both lines. Predictive power and the extracted predictors for all experiments were gathered. ROC curves of 0.5446 and 0.7974 were obtained for multivariate analysis and machine learning without resampling, respectively. However, the resampling experiment showed no significant difference between them (0.52 vs. 0.53 ROC AUC). A difference between the predictors selected was observed, with the multivariable methodology being more stable. These results question the validity of predictors reported in previous studies and demonstrate their disparity. Furthermore, none of the techniques analyzed is superior to the other for these data.
Abstract Background Assessment of myocardial deformation in Chagas disease may help us to better understand the disease pathophysiology and to detect early myocardial involvement. We aimed to ...characterize myocardial deformation in patients in different forms of Chagas disease and, specifically, assess differences between patients in the indeterminate form and controls. Methods and Results Speckle tracking echocardiography was performed in 98 subjects (22 with Chagas cardiomyopathy, 32 in the indeterminate form, and 44 control subjects) to quantify global and segmental left ventricular (LV) radial strain (RS), circumferential strain (CS), and longitudinal strain (LS). In a subset of patients from the indeterminate and control groups (n = 25), LV peak systolic twist and untwisting velocities were additionally assessed. Global RS, CS, and LS showed a significant decreasing trend across groups. Patients in the indeterminate form had significantly lower global RS and RS in the midinferior segment (median 39.8% vs 49.3% P = .046 and 44.0% vs 56.0% P = .038, respectively) and lower twist and untwisting velocity ( P < .05 for both) compared with control subjects. Conclusion Evaluation of myocardial deformation, particularly of RS, appears to be a sensitive technique for detection of myocardial involvement in patients in the indeterminate form and provides insights into the still unrevealed pathophysiology of Chagas heart involvement.
ABSTRACT Introduction and objectives: Nonagenarians are a fast-growing age group among cardiovascular patients, especially with aortic stenosis, but data about their prognosis after transcatheter ...aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is scarce. The objective of our study is to analyze the baseline characteristics of nonagenarians treated with TAVI and determine whether age ≥ 90 years is associated with a worse prognosis compared to non-nonagenarian patients. Methods: We included all patients ≥75 years enrolled in the multicenter prospective Spanish TAVI registry between 2009 and 2018. Patients < 75 years were excluded. Results: A total of 8073 elderly patients (≥ 75 years) from 46 Spanish centers were enrolled in the Spanish TAVI registry; 7686 were between ≥ 75 and < 90 years old (95.2%), and 387 were nonagenarian patients (4.79%). A gradual increase of nonagenarians was observed. The transfemoral access was used in 91.6% of the cases, predominantly among the nonagenarian patients (91.4% vs 95.1%, P = .01). Nonagenarians were more likely to die during their hospital stay (4.3% vs 7.0% among nonagenarians, P = .01). However, no difference was seen in the all-cause mortality rates reported at the 1-year follow-up (8.8% vs 11.3%, P =.07). In the multivariate analysis, age ≥ 90 years was not independently associated with a higher adjusted all-cause mortality rate (HR, 1.37, 95%CI, 0.91-1.97, P = .14). The baseline creatinine levels, and the in-hospital bleeding complications were all associated with a worse long-term prognosis in nonagenarians treated with TAVI. Conclusions: Nonagenarians are a very high-risk and growing population with severe AS in whom TAVI may be a safe and effective strategy. Careful patient selection by the TAVI heart team is mandatory to achieve maximum efficiency in this population where the baseline kidney function and bleeding complications may determine the long-term prognosis after TAVI.