Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive disease with a poor prognosis if left untreated. Despite remarkable achievements in understanding disease pathophysiology, specific treatments, ...and therapeutic strategies, we are still far from a definitive cure for the disease, and numerous evidences have underlined the importance of early diagnosis and treatment to improve the prognosis. Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) is the gold standard for assessing functional capacity and evaluating the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying exercise limitation. As effort dyspnea is the earliest and one of the main clinical manifestations of PAH, CPET has been shown to provide valid support in early detection, differential diagnosis, and prognostic stratification of PAH patients, being a useful tool in both the first approach to patients and follow-up. The purpose of this review is to present the current applications of CPET in pulmonary hypertension and to propose possible future utilization to be further investigated.
The recent epidemic of the new SARS-CoV-2 in the northern regions of Italy is putting the organization of the Italian health system under serious attack. The current emergency requires all possible ...efforts to stem the spread of the virus. In this context, it is clear that we have the urgent need to rely upon etiopathogenetic data, in order to do all possible efforts to block the epidemic. However, observing the trend of the infections in China and the geographic areas of the main outbreaks, it could be hypothesized that air pollution plays a role. In particular, it has been previously demonstrated, in specific populations, a role of particulate matter in worsening clinical presentation of virus infection in airways. Without prejudice to the ascertained virus spread by air droplets or contaminated surfaces, the factors that could have favored its spread remain to be investigated. Moreover, if these observations were to be confirmed, when the health emergency is resolved, it will be mandatory to redesign an economic-productive model in balance with the environment.
Despite recent advances in the therapeutic management of patients affected by pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), survival remains poor. Prompt identification of the disease, especially in ...subjects at increased risk of developing PAH, and prognostic stratification of patients are a necessary target of clinical practice but remain challenging. Cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) parameters, particularly peak oxygen uptake, end-tidal carbon dioxide tension and the minute ventilation/carbon dioxide production relationship, emerged as new prognostic tools for PAH patients. Moreover, CPET provides a comprehensive pathophysiological evaluation of patients' exercise limitation and dyspnoea, which are the main and early symptoms of the disease. This review focuses on the role of CPET in the management of PAH patients, reporting guideline recommendations for CPET and discussing the pathophysiology of exercise limitation and the most recent use of CPET in the diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic targeting of PAH.
Background:Heart failure (HF) progression and its complications represent major emergent concerns in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). We investigated the possible adjunctive role of cardiopulmonary ...exercise testing (CPET) in predicting HF-related events. An exercise-derived risk model, theHYPertrophicExercise-derivedRiskHF(HYPERHF), has been developed.Methods and Results:A multicenter cohort of 620 consecutive HCM outpatients was recruited and followed (2007 to 2015). The endpoint was death from HF, cardiac transplantation, NYHA III–IV class progression, severe functional deterioration leading to hospitalization for septal reduction, and hospitalization for HF worsening. During a median follow-up of 3.8 years (25–75th centile: 2.3–5.3 years), 84 patients reached the endpoint. Peak circulatory power (peak oxygen consumption * peak systolic blood pressure), ventilatory efficiency and left atrial diameter were independently associated with the endpoint and, accordingly, integrated into the HYPERHFmodel (C index: 0.849; best cutoff value equal to 15%).Conclusions:CPET is useful in the evaluation of HCM patients. In this context, the HYPERHFscore might allow early identification of those patients at high risk of HF progression and its complications. (Circ J 2016; 80: 2204–2211)
Patients requiring diagnostic testing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are routinely assessed by reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) amplification of ...Sars-CoV-2 virus RNA extracted from oro/nasopharyngeal swabs. Despite the good specificity of the assays certified for SARS-CoV-2 molecular detection, and a theoretical sensitivity of few viral gene copies per reaction, a relatively high rate of false negatives continues to be reported. This is an important challenge in the management of patients on hospital admission and for correct monitoring of the infectivity after the acute phase. In the present report, we show that the use of digital PCR, a high sensitivity method to detect low amplicon numbers, allowed us to correctly detecting infection in swab material in a significant number of false negatives. We show that the implementation of digital PCR methods in the diagnostic assessment of COVID-19 could resolve, at least in part, this timely issue.
Objectives The aim of this study was to assess the long-term prognostic role of multidetector computed tomography coronary angiography (CTA) in patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). ...Background Use of CTA is increasing in patients with suspected CAD. Although there is a large body of data supporting the prognostic role of CTA for major adverse cardiac events in the intermediate term, its long-term prognostic role in patients with suspected CAD is not well studied. Methods Between February 2005 and March 2008, 1,304 consecutive patients were prospectively studied with CTA for detecting the presence and assessing extent of CAD (disease extension and coronary plaque scores). Patients were classified according to the presence of normal coronaries and nonobstructive (<50%) and obstructive (>50%) coronary lesions. The composite rates of hard cardiac events (cardiac deaths and nonfatal myocardial infarctions) and all cardiac events (including late revascularization) were the endpoints of the study. Results Seventy patients were excluded because their CTA data were uninterpretable. Of the remaining 1,234 patients, clinical follow-up (mean 52 ± 22 months) was obtained for 1,196 (97%). A total of 475 events were recorded, with 136 hard events (18 cardiac deaths and 118 nonfatal myocardial infarctions) and 123 late revascularizations. A total of 216 patients with early elective revascularizations were excluded from the survival analysis. Significant independent predictors of events in multivariate analysis were multivessel disease and left main CAD. Cumulative event-free survival was 100% for hard and all events in patients with normal coronary arteries, 88% for hard events and 72% for all events in patients with nonobstructive CAD, and 54% for hard events and 31% for all events in patients with obstructive CAD. Multivessel CAD was associated with a higher rate of hard cardiac events. Conclusions CTA provides prognostic information in patients with suspected CAD and unknown cardiac disease, showing excellent long-term prognosis when there is no evidence of atherosclerosis and allowing risk stratification when CAD is present.
Exertional dyspnoea is among the dominant symptoms in patients with chronic heart failure and progresses relentlessly as the disease advances, leading to reduced ability to function and engage in ...activities of daily living. Effective management of this disabling symptom awaits a better understanding of its underlying physiology.Cardiovascular factors are believed to play a major role in dyspnoea in heart failure patients. However, despite pharmacological interventions, such as vasodilators or inotropes that improve central haemodynamics, patients with heart failure still complain of exertional dyspnoea. Clearly, dyspnoea is not determined by cardiac factors alone, but likely depends on complex, integrated cardio-pulmonary interactions.A growing body of evidence suggests that excessively increased ventilatory demand and abnormal "restrictive" constraints on tidal volume expansion with development of critical mechanical limitation of ventilation, contribute to exertional dyspnoea in heart failure. This article will offer new insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms of exertional dyspnoea in patients with chronic heart failure by exploring the potential role of the various constituents of the physiological response to exercise and particularly the role of abnormal ventilatory and respiratory mechanics responses to exercise in the perception of dyspnoea in patients with heart failure.
Abstract Background There are limited data comparing ultrafiltration with standard medical therapy as first-line treatment in patients with severe congestive heart failure (HF). We compared ...ultrafiltration and conventional therapy in patients hospitalized for HF and overt fluid overload. Methods and Results Fifty-six patients with congestive HF were randomized to receive standard medical therapy (control group; n = 29) or ultrafiltration (ultrafiltration group; n = 27). The primary end point of the study was rehospitalizations for congestive HF during a 1-year follow-up. Despite similar body weight reduction at hospital discharge in the 2 groups (7.5 ± 5.5 and 7.9 ± 9.0 kg, respectively; P = .75), a lower incidence of rehospitalizations for HF was observed in the ultrafiltration-treated patients during the following year (hazard ratio 0.14, 95% confidence interval 0.04–0.48; P = .002). Ultrafiltration-induced benefit was associated with a more stable renal function, unchanged furosemide dose, and lower B-type natriuretic peptide levels. At 1 year, 7 deaths (30%) occurred in the ultrafiltration group and 11 (44%) in the control group ( P = .33). Conclusions In HF patients with severe fluid overload, first-line treatment with ultrafiltration is associated with a prolonged clinical stabilization and a greater freedom from rehospitalization for congestive HF.
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