One-stage repair of cardiac and arch anomalies without circumlatory arrest

Indian Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery -     

Pegylated liposomal doxorubicin plus highly active antiretroviral therapy versus highly active antiretroviral therapy alone in HIV patients with Kaposi's sarcoma

Twenty-eight HIV patients either naive or failing highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART)with moderate-advanced Kaposi's sarcoma (KS)were randomly chosen to initiate a new HAART regimen plus pegylated liposomal doxorubicin(PLD) or the new HAART regimen alone. After 48 weeks, better response rates were observed in the HAART plus PLD group (76% versus 20%).In HIV-infected patients with moderate-advanced KS, HAART alone may not be enough for KS response.     

Novel insight into the detailed myocardial motion and deformation of the rodent heart using high-resolution phase contrast cardiovascular magnetic resonance

Background

Phase contrast velocimetry cardiovascular magnetic resonance (PC-CMR) is a powerful and versatile tool allowing assessment of in vivo motion of the myocardium. However, PC-CMR is sensitive to motion related artifacts causing errors that are geometrically systematic, rendering regional analysis of myocardial function challenging. The objective of this study was to establish an optimized PC-CMR method able to provide novel insight in the complex regional motion and strain of the rodent myocardium, and provide a proof-of-concept in normal and diseased rat hearts with higher temporal and spatial resolution than previously reported.

Methods

A PC-CMR protocol optimized for assessing the motion and deformation of the myocardium in rats with high spatiotemporal resolution was established, and ten animals with different degree of cardiac dysfunction underwent examination and served as proof-of-concept. Global and regional myocardial velocities and circumferential strain were calculated, and the results were compared to five control animals. Furthermore, the global strain measurements were validated against speckle-tracking echocardiography, and inter- and intrastudy variability of the protocol were evaluated.

Results

The presented method allows assessment of regional myocardial function in rats with high level of detail; temporal resolution was 3.2 ms, and analysis was done using 32 circumferential segments. In the dysfunctional hearts, global and regional function were distinctly altered, including reduced global peak values, increased regional heterogeneity and increased index of dyssynchrony. Strain derived from the PC-CMR data was in excellent agreement with echocardiography (r = 0.95, p < 0.001; limits-of-agreement −0.02 ± 3.92%strain), and intra- and interstudy variability were low for both velocity and strain (limits-of-agreement, radial motion: 0.01 ± 0.32 cm/s and −0.06 ± 0.75 cm/s; circumferential strain: -0.16 ± 0.89%strain and −0.71 ± 1.67%strain, for intra- and interstudy, respectively).

Conclusion

We demonstrate, for the first time, that PC-CMR enables high-resolution evaluation of in vivo circumferential strain in addition to myocardial motion of the rat heart. In combination with the superior geometric robustness of CMR, this ultimately provides a tool for longitudinal studies of regional function in rodents with high level of detail.     

Activation of serotonin receptors promotes microglial injury-induced motility but attenuates phagocytic activity

Microglia, the brain immune cell, express several neurotransmitter receptors which modulate microglial functions. In this project we studied the impact of serotonin receptor activation on distinct microglial properties as serotonin deficiency not only has been linked to a number of psychiatric disease like depression and anxiety but may also permeate from the periphery through blood-brain barrier openings seen in neurodegenerative disease. First, we tested the impact of serotonin on the microglial response to an insult caused by a laser lesion in the cortex of acute slices from Cx3Cr1-GFP-/+ mice. In the presence of serotonin the microglial processes moved more rapidly towards the laser lesion which is considered to be a chemotactic response to ATP. Similarly, the chemotactic response of cultured microglia to ATP was also enhanced by serotonin. Quantification of phagocytic activity by determining the uptake of microspheres showed that the amoeboid microglia in slices from early postnatal animals or microglia in culture respond to serotonin application with a decreased phagocytic activity whereas we could not detect any significant change in ramified microglia in situ. The presence of microglial serotonin receptors was confirmed by patch-clamp experiments in culture and amoeboid microglia and by qPCR analysis of RNA isolated from primary cultured and acutely isolated adult microglia. These data suggest that microglia express functional serotonin receptors linked to distinct microglial properties.