Hepatic and Renal Failure after Anterior Myocardial Infarction Induced Apical Ventricular Septal Defect

We report the case of a 68-year-old man suffering from incremental hepatic and renal failure one month after anterior myocardial infarction. Cardiac MRI showed a pronounced apical post-AMI aneurysm, a moderate to severe mitral and tricuspid regurgitation as well as a hemodynamically highly significant 12 mm apical ventricular septal defect with a left-to-right ventricular shunt of almost 63% as the underlying cause. Heart X-ray revealed a severe LAD in-stent restenosis. CAPD catheter drainage of hydroperitoneum due to congestive liver and renal failure was provided in combination with intensified CAPD hemodialysis. Heart surgery was performed where the apical aneurysm was excised, the mitral valve was reconstructed, the IVSD was closed and the subtotally in-stent occluded LAD was bypassed. Post-surgery, the ascites were significantly reduced, and CAPD hemodialysis therapy could be terminated since the renal function gradually improved (MDRD = 25 mL/min). To our knowledge, for the first time we report successful CAPD catheter drainage of hydroperitoneum in combination with CAPD hemodialysis

Prediction of coronary artery disease by a systemic atherosclerosis score index derived from whole-body MR angiography

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Whole-body magnetic resonance angiography (WB-MRA) has shown its potential for the non-invasive assessment of nearly the entire arterial vasculature within one examination. Since the presence of extra-cardiac atherosclerosis is associated with an increased risk of coronary events, our goal was to establish the relationship between WB-MRA findings, including a systemic atherosclerosis score index, and the presence of significant coronary artery disease (CAD).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>WB-MRA was performed on a 1.5T scanner in 50 patients scheduled to undergo elective cardiac catheterization for suspected CAD. In each patient, 40 extra-cardiac vessel segments were evaluated and assigned scores according to their luminal narrowing. The atherosclerosis score index (ASI) was generated as the ratio of summed scores to analyzable segments.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>ASI was higher in patients with significant (> 50% stenosis) CAD (n = 27) vs. patients without CAD (n = 22; 1.56 vs. 1.28, p = 0.004). ASI correlated with PROCAM (R = 0.57, p < 0.001) and Framingham (R = 0.36, p = 0.01) risk scores as estimates of the 10-year risk of coronary events. A ROC derived ASI of > 1.54 predicted significant CAD with a sensitivity of 59%, specificity of 86% and a positive predictive value of 84%. Logistic regression revealed ASI > 1.54 as the strongest independent predictor for CAD with a 11-fold increase in likelihood to suffer from significant coronary disease. On the contrary, while 15/27 (55%) of patients with CAD exhibited at least one extra-cardiac stenosis > 50%, only 3/22 (14%) of those patients without CAD did (p = 0.003). The likelihood for an extra-cardiac stenosis when CAD is present differed between vascular territories and ranged from 15% for a carotid stenosis to 44% for a stenosis in the lower extremities.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides important new evidence for the close association of extra-cardiac and coronary atherosclerosis. The novel findings that a WB-MRA derived systemic atherosclerosis score index is not only associated with established cardiovascular risk scores but is also predictive of significant CAD suggest its potential prognostic implications and underline the importance to screen for coronary disease in patients with extra-cardiac manifestations of atherosclerosis.</p

Review of journal of cardiovascular magnetic resonance 2010

There were 75 articles published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (JCMR) in 2010, which is a 34% increase in the number of articles since 2009. The quality of the submissions continues to increase, and the editors were delighted with the recent announcement of the JCMR Impact Factor of 4.33 which showed a 90% increase since last year. Our acceptance rate is approximately 30%, but has been falling as the number of articles being submitted has been increasing. In accordance with Open-Access publishing, the JCMR articles go on-line as they are accepted with no collating of the articles into sections or special thematic issues. Last year for the first time, the Editors summarized the papers for the readership into broad areas of interest or theme, which we felt would be useful to practitioners of cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) so that you could review areas of interest from the previous year in a single article in relation to each other and other recent JCMR articles [1]. This experiment proved very popular with a very high rate of downloading, and therefore we intend to continue this review annually. The papers are presented in themes and comparison is drawn with previously published JCMR papers to identify the continuity of thought and publication in the journal. We hope that you find the open-access system increases wider reading and citation of your papers, and that you will continue to send your quality manuscripts to JCMR for publication