An 85-year-old gentleman presented with chest pain and sustained ventricular tachycardia and underwent emergency Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) of his right coronary artery using drug eluting stents.

A staged PCI was planned for the Left Anterior Descending Artery (LAD) three days later. The patient was known to have atrial fibrillation for many years and we planned to occlude the Left Atrial Appendage (LAA) in the same sitting in order to avoid long-term triple therapy.

This study has been designed to investigate the role of phosphatidylinositidyl-3-kinase gamma (PI3Kγ) in Mono Cro Taline (MCT)-and nicotine-induced endothelial dysfunction in pulmonary arteries. MCT (60 mg/ kg, s.c, once in 4 weeks) and nicotine (2 mg/kg, i.p, regularly) were administered in respective groups to produce pulmonary vascular endothelium dysfunction. Vascular endothelial dysfunction was assessed in terms of attenuation of acetylcholine-induced endothelium-dependent relaxation, sodium nitroprusside-induced endothelium-independent vasorelaxation (Isolated pulmonary artery ring preparation), decrease in serum nitrate/ nitrite level, mRNA expression of eNOS (rtPCR) and increased oxidative stress (superoxide anions and TBARS level), mean arterial blood pressure and right ventricular hypertrophy. PI3Kγ inhibitor CAY10505 (0.6 mg/kg, p.o) [(5-[5-4-fluorophenyl)-2-furanyl]-2, 4-thiazolidinedione] and atorvastatin (30 mg/kg, p.o, positive control) treatment for 7 days (21st-28th day) significantly improved, mean arterial blood pressure and right ventricular hypertrophy in both nicotine and Mono Cro Taline-induced pulmonary vascular endothelial dysfunction. Therefore, it may be concluded that CAY10505, a specific inhibitor of PI3Kγ up regulates eNOS expression and nitric oxide production to improve Mono Cro Taline and nicotine-induced pulmonary vascular endothelial dysfunction.

Lymphedema, a condition which typically affects the extremities, is characterized by accumulation of protein-rich fluid in the soft tissues due to malfunction of the lymphatic system. The normal role of the lymphatic system is to passively convey and actively pump interstitial fluid back into the blood stream. Primary (congenital) lymphedema arises from poorly understood factors, while secondary lymphedema is caused by another known disease. Most often, upper extremity secondary lymphedema is the result of breast cancer, with an incidence of 15-20% among female breast-cancer patients who have undergone a mastectomy or radiation as part of therapy [1]. It has been estimated that primary lymphedema affects 1.15 out of 100,000 children in North America [2].

Lymphedema, a condition which typically affects the extremities, is characterized by accumulation of protein-rich fluid in the soft tissues due to malfunction of the lymphatic system. The normal role of the lymphatic system is to passively convey and actively pump interstitial fluid back into the blood stream. Primary (congenital) lymphedema arises from poorly understood factors, while secondary lymphedema is caused by another known disease. Most often, upper extremity secondary lymphedema is the result of breast cancer, with an incidence of 15-20% among female breast-cancer patients who have undergone a mastectomy or radiation as part of therapy [1]. It has been estimated that primary lymphedema affects 1.15 out of 100,000 children in North America [2].

Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy/dysplasia (ARVC) is a genetic form of cardiomyopathy affecting primarily the Right Ventricle (RV) but also may involves the Left Ventricle (LV) and may culminate in life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias, Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) and/or heart failure. In most cases it is transmitted with an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance, with incomplete penetrance and variable expression, but there are also some rare autosomal recessive forms as Naxos disease and Carvajal syndrome.

The term “cardiomyopathy” should be preferred to “dysplasia”, as already suggested by WHO/ International Society and Federation of Cardiology in 1996 and Maron, about classification of cardiomyopathy in 2006 [1,2].

Background: Assessment of tissue oxygenation and vascular function is an integral component in the management of chronic wounds. Current practice in wound centers is screening with Pulse Volume Recording (PVR) or Transcutaneous Oxygen Saturation (TCO₂ ) to evaluate safety of compression wraps, utility for vascular intervention and expected response to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT).

A near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy device (Kent, Calgary) using 4 wavelengths of light to determine O₂ saturation of hemoglobin (Hgb) in cutaneous tissue has been developed. The low absorption of light by H₂O and melanin in the NIR range allows for measurement of absorption of deoxygenated and oxygenated hemoglobin and for the calculation of O₂ saturation. The purpose of this study is to determine the correlation between the gold standard TCO₂ and NIR spectroscopy in measuring cutaneous O₂ .

Materials and methods: 20 patients with Fitzpatrick skin types I-III who had measurements of TCO₂ (Perimed, Stockholm) also had simultaneous measurements obtained by NIR spectroscopy. The investigation was reviewed and approved by Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects at WVU. The Hemoglobin/ O₂ dissociation curve at 370 degrees C, pH=7.4 and pCO2 =40 was used to calculate O₂ saturations from measurement of TCO₂ .

Results: Data pairs were analyzed using linear regression and the relationship y=0.93 x+5.35 with a correlation coefficient=0.92 and r² =0.84 was calculated.

Conclusions: There was a significant correlation between measurements of tissue oxygenation using TCO₂ and NIR spectroscopy. NIR spectroscopy has the advantage of not requiring skin contact and measurements can be taken even in the wound bed. Other advantages include: 1). Time (2 minutes vs. 90 minutes) and 2). Disposable cost ($150 –TCO₂ vs. $0-NIR spectroscopy). 3). The ability to perform serial studies over time. Further studies are warranted to determine if this information is useful in determining response to HBOT or in predicting wound-healing trajectory

The study aim is to determine factors affecting the long-term survival of subjects with Aortic Aneurysm (AA). The sample included 294 Korean patients aged ≥ 30 years who were hospitalized from 1994 through 2004. Diagnosis was confirmed in 294 AA subjects (18.4% in affected Coronary Artery Disease (CAD); 75.8% with abdominal only AA (AAA) and 24.2% with Thoracic AA (TAA)) by computed tomography angiography in Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea. AA repair direct operation or percutaneous endovascular AA repair (Revascularized group) was performed for 60.3% of the patients. Death data were obtained from all participants between 1994 and 2009. The mean age of AA subjects was 68.7 (±8.1) years. The proportion of males was 82%. Five- and 10-year survival rates were 89.8% and 82.6%, respectively. The 5-and 10-year survival rates were 92.3% and 84.9% in revascularized group and 86.4% and 79.5% in non-revascularized group, respectively. Adjusted hazard ratios were 1.14 (95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.06-1.22) in ages and 2.94 (95% CI 1.23-7.38) in smoking for AA. Age and smoking contributed to death in Korean AA patients. And the 10-year survival rate for AA patients in Korea was over 80%. Revascularized group shows higher survival rate than non-revascularized group.

Predicting the rupture of Aortic Aneurysms is a complex problem that interests, from several decades, many researchers. The works on this issue are very complex, involving both the study of mechanical behavior of the artery as the flow of blood. The Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technique allows to obtain anatomic information of the arteries, than the flow inside thereof. The goal of this study is an inter comparison between flow data from MRI and those obtained by Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). An experimental device simulating hemodynamic circulation is used. Initially in order to validate the device, the flow in a cylindrical glass tube is measured by these two techniques and then compared to a theoretical model. Secondly, the flow in a phantom in silicone, with an axisymmetric aneurysm, is evaluated with 4D flow MRI sequences and the measurements are compared with those obtained by PIV with good agreement. The ability of the MRI technique to measure the flow thus makes an essential device for the study of cardiovascular disease.