Novel Echocardiographic Biomarkers in the Management of Atrial Fibrillation

Purpose of Review: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia in adults. The number of patients with AF is anticipated to increase annually, mainly due to the aging population alongside improved arrhythmia detection. AF is associated with a significantly elevated risk of hospitalization, stroke, thromboembolism, heart failure, and all-cause mortality. Echocardiography is one of the key components of routine assessment and management of AF. Therefore, the aim of this review is to briefly summarize current knowledge on “novel” echocardiographic parameters that may be of value in the management of AF patients. Recent Findings: Novel echocardiographic biomarkers and their clinical application related to the management of AF have been taken into consideration. Both standard parameters such as atrial size and volume but also novels like atrial strain and tissue Doppler techniques have been analyzed. Summary: A number of novel echocardiographic parameters have been proven to enable early detection of left atrial dysfunction along with increased diagnosis accuracy. This concerns particularly experienced echocardiographers. Hence, these techniques might improve the prediction of stroke and thromboembolic events among AF patients and need to be further developed and disseminated. Nonetheless, even the standard imaging parameters could be of significant value and should not be discontinued in everyday clinical practice. © 2019, The Author(s)

Initial orthostatic hypotension as a cause of recurrent syncope: a case report

A 60-year-old male patient with recurrent unexplained syncope on standing was studied. During continuous, noninvasive blood pressure (BP) recording with a Finapres device, an abnormally large and symptomatic initial decrease in systemic BP was documented. After 2 minutes of standing, BP had recovered. The transient decrease in BP was attributed to the use of a combination of antidepressants known to interfere with sympathetic function. This case shows the importance of continuous, noninvasive BP measurement on standing: routine intermittent BP recording would have missed the abnormality. In patients using medications such as antidepressants, initial transient hypotension should be considered as the cause of falls and syncop

Yttrium containing head-on complexes of silico- and germanotungstate: Synthesis, structure and solution properties

Two dimeric head-on complexes of yttrium containing silico- and germanotungstate were isolated from the one-pot reaction of Y(NO3)(3)center dot 6H(2)O with the lacunary Na-10MW9O34]center dot 16H(2)O (M = Si and Ge) building blocks in an acetate buffer at pH 4.5. Both polyanions were structurally characterized using various solid-state analytics, such as single-crystal X-ray diffraction, single-crystal X-ray analysis shows that both polyanions crystallize in the monoclinic crystal system (S.G. P2(1)/c). FT-IR spectroscopy, or thermogravimetric analysis. The stability of the polyanion in aqueous solution was studied by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy (W-183, Y-89, Si-29, C-13, and H-1). As expected, the W-183 NMR spectra display six peaks in the intensity ratio of 4:4:2:4:4:4 which indicates that both polyanions exist as dimeric entities in aqueous solution.(C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved