Clinical Outcomes and Effectiveness of Renal Artery Stenting in Patients With Critical Atherosclerotic Renal Artery Stenosis: Does it İmprove Blood Pressure Control and Renal Function Assessed by Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate?

INTRODUCTION: Atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis (ARAS) is associated with uncontrolled hypertension and chronic renal failure. AIM: To evaluate the influence of gender and presence of chronic renal failure on the outcomes of percutaneous transluminal renal artery stenting (PTRAS) due to atherosclerosis. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A total of 28 ARAS patients underwent PTRAS and 36 stents were placed. Basal characteristics, laboratory data and blood pressure of patients were recorded. The differences between genders and improvement/deterioration of renal functions and blood pressure were analyzed. The predictors of outcomes were determined. RESULTS: Baseline characteristics were similar between men and women. Significant improvement of systolic and diastolic blood pressure control was achieved after PTRAS (153.04 ±17.07 mm Hg vs. 124.75 ±11.40 mm Hg, p = 0.001 and 92.50 ±10.76 mm Hg vs. 77.54 ±8.23 mm Hg, p < 0.001, respectively). Although mean estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and creatinine levels did not significantly improve at the 6-month follow-up visit compared to baseline values, of the 28 patients 13 (46.4%) patients had improvement of renal functions. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that PTRAS is a safe procedure and may offer blood pressure control but beneficial effects of PTRAS on renal function may be anticipated in a selected group of patients, especially those with a low eGFR

Is metabolic syndrome related with coronary artery disease severity and complexity: An observational study about IDF and AHA/NHLBI metabolic syndrome definitions

Background: The aim of the present study was to assess the relation between metabolic syndrome (MS) and coronary artery disease (CAD) complexity, assessed by Syntax score (SS), and severity in non-diabetic patients with stable CAD who underwent coronary angiography, and to evaluate whether the MS defined by different definitions, including International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and American Heart Association/National Heart Lung Blood Institute (AHA/NHLBI) guidelines, similarly correlated with SS.Methods: The present study is cross sectional and observational with prospective inclusion of 248 consecutive patients (157 male) who underwent coronary angiography due to stable CAD.Results: The prevalence of MS was 54.4% according to IDF definition and 50.4% according to AHA/NHLBI definition. MS score according to IDF definitions (r = 0.446, p &lt; 0.001), MS score according to AHA/NHLBI definitions (r = 0.341, p &lt; 0.001) were moderately correlated with SS. In Fisher r to z transformation test the correlations of the presence of MS according to IDF and AHA/NHLBI definitions with SS were not statistically significant (p = 0.168, z = –1.38). The systolic blood pressure (p &lt; 0.001, B = 0.354, 95% CI = –0.308 to 0.228), diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.006, B = –0.194, 95% CI = –0.333 to –0.056), age (p = 0.014, B = 0.147, 95% CI = 0.029 to 0.264), left ventricular ejection fraction (p = 0.031, B = –0.150, 95% CI= –0.286 to –0.014), waist/hip circumference (p &lt; 0.001, B = 45.713, 95% CI = 23.235 to 68.1919) and log10 high density lipoprotein (p &lt; 0.001, B = –22.209, 95% CI = –33.298 to–11.119) were the independent predictors of SS in linear regression analysis.Conclusions: MS is associated with the presence and complexity of CAD. Besides the presence of discrepancy in the limits of waist circumference, both IDF and AHA/NHLBI criteria were similarly correlated with CAD complexity

The interaction of drugs to treat cardiovascular diseases and testosterone therapy, their effects and characteristics

Testosterone is used in the treatment of primary or acquired hypogonadism, constitutional growth retardation, and delayed puberty in male patients. Today, there is a fact that cardiovascular diseases present a high frequency in males with a marked tendency to increase soon. Therefore, the number of men using drugs to treat cardiovascular diseases is increasing rapidly. Cardiovascular drugs, which are frequently used and/or recently introduced, may cause undesirable effects under the heading of drug-drug interaction with testosterone therapy. The number of male patients exposed to these agents may increase rapidly quite soon. In this paper, we reviewed the potential drug-drug interactions between drugs to treat cardiovascular diseases and testosterone treatment considering the pharmacokinetic parameters and experimental animal studies in the literature