Heart rate and blood pressure variability in cardiac diseases: pharmacological implications

Summary— Even at rest, blood pressure and heart rate fluctuate continuously around their mean values. Considerable interest has recently focused on the assessment of spontaneous fluctuations in heart rate and blood pressure, ie, heart rate and blood pressure variability, using time or frequency domain indexes. Heart rate variability has been extensively studied in cardiovascular disease and has emerged as a valuable parameter for detecting abnormalities in autonomic cardiovascular control, evaluating the prognosis and assessing the impact of drug therapy on the autonomic nervous system in patients with myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure or a heart transplant. In contrast, until the recent development of noninvasive methods for continuous blood pressure recording, blood pressure variability received little attention, and this parameter remains to be evaluated in cardiovascular disease.     

Heart rate recovery: autonomic determinants,methods of assessment and association with mortality and cardiovascular diseases

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the primary cause of mortality worldwide. Cardiac autonomic dysfunction seems to be related to the genesis of several CVDs and is also linked to the increased risk of mortality in CVD patients. The quantification of heart rate decrement after exercise – known as heart rate recovery (HRR) – is a simple tool for assessing cardiac autonomic activity in healthy and CVD patients. Furthermore, since The Cleveland Clinic studies, HRR has also been used as a powerful index for predicting mortality. For these reasons, in recent years, the scientific community has been interested in proposing methods and protocols to investigate HRR and understand its underlying mechanisms. The aim of this review is to discuss current knowledge about HRR, including its potential primary and secondary physiological determinants, as well as its role in predicting mortality. Published data show that HRR can be modelled by an exponential curve, with a fast and a slow decay component. HRR may be influenced by population and exercise characteristics. The fast component mainly seems to be dictated by the cardiac parasympathetic reactivation, probably promoted by the deactivation of central command and mechanoreflex inputs immediately after exercise cessation. On the other hand, the slow phase of HRR may be determined by cardiac sympathetic withdrawal, possibly via the deactivation of metaboreflex and thermoregulatory mechanisms. All these pathways seem to be impaired in CVD, helping to explain the slower HRR in such patients and the increased rate of mortality in individuals who present a slower HRR.     

心脏移植的供心选择

20世纪80年代，环孢霉素A等免疫抑制剂广泛运用于心脏移植，心脏移植的效果显著提高，心脏移植迅速发展。在左心辅助系统等人工心脏进一步发展并能取代心脏移植之前，心脏移植已经成为终末期心脏病患者最好的选择。到目前为止，全世界已经进行了近65000例原位心脏移植术，目前每年约有3200例。     

心脏包虫病3例报告并文献复习

目的：探讨心脏包虫病的临床诊断和治疗原则。方法：回顾性分析在柏林德国心脏中心诊治的3例心脏包虫病患者的临床资料；并复习相关文献。结果；应用血清学检查、经胸及经食管心脏超声、CT检查、心导管检查3例心脏包虫病得到诊断．术前给予抗蠕虫病治疗4周后行低温体外循环下心脏包虫囊肿切除术。3例患者痊愈，随访期间无复发。结论。心脏包虫病的误诊率高。对心脏包虫病的早期诊断、治疗尤其重蓦。外科手术是理想的治疗心脏包虫病的手段。     

冠心病心力衰竭与风心病心力衰竭的远期预后比较

[目的]分析比较冠心病心力衰竭与风心病心力衰竭患者的远期疗效,探讨病因对患者预后的影响.[方法]选择本院收治的101例冠心病心力衰竭患者和71例风心病心力衰竭患者,根据病因将患者分为冠心病组与风心病组,比较两组患者的临床特点和远期预后.[结果]冠心病组患者的病死率(46.53％)高于风心病组患者(16.90％),冠心病组患者的不完全恢复率(8.91％)低于风心病组患者(23.94％),且两组相比较差异均有显著性(P ＜0.05).[结论]冠心病导致心力衰竭患者的预后差,病因应作为影响因素纳入到对心力衰竭患者预后的评价中.