Ventricular septal defect in a child with Alport syndrome: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alport syndrome (AS) is a rare inherited disorder characterized by an inflammation of the kidneys and damage to the glomerular capillaries, ultimately leading to renal failure at an early age. To date, rare reports of cardiac involvement in AS have been described, due in the majority of cases to the higher risk of heart conduction abnormalities in these patients, at times requiring implantation of a transcutaneous pacemaker. An increased risk of hypertension is likewise commonly featured.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of a 17-year-old female affected by a very severe early form of AS. A previously unreported association of the syndrome with congenital heart disease (CHD), (in this case membranous ventricular septal defect), is also reported. A possible pathophysiological mechanism underlying the concomitant manifestation of these two disorders is suggested. Complications implicated in surgical treatment of CHD are described. Clinical and therapeutic management of AS with cardiovascular involvement are discussed, and a short literature review performed.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This first report of a cardiovascular association highlights the possible involvement of collagen mutations in the two pathologies. Even when drug-resistance appears to be responsible for the failure to control secondary hypertension in AS, clonidine may represent a safe, effective option in the normalization of high blood pressure.</p

Acute and chronic pancreatitis--diseases on the rise: a study of hospital admissions in England 1989/90-1999/2000

Given elliptic modular forms f and g satisfying certain conditions on their weights and levels, we prove (a quantitative version of the statement) that there exist infinitely many imaginary quadratic fields K and characters chi of the ideal class group Cl_K such that L(1/2, f_K \times chi) \neq 0 and L(1/2, g_K \times chi) \neq 0. The proof is based on a non-vanishing result for Fourier coefficients of Siegel modular forms combined with the theory of Yoshida liftings.Comment: 23 pages, version after incorporating referee's comments; to appear in J. Lond. Math. So