Biomedical subjects

D Cartoni

Publications and source records attributed to D Cartoni.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed1992

Heart involvement in AIDS: a prospective study during various stages of the disease.

The goal of our study was to evaluate the incidence of heart involvement in AIDS patients during various stages of the disease. Between January 1988 to September 1991, we conducted a prospective study in 114 anti-HIV positive patients. The patients, whose mean age (+/- SD) was 34.6 +/- 5.4 years (range 20 to 54), were divided into three groups: anti-HIV positive asymptomatic (n = 31; 27%), AIDS related complex (ARC) group IV-A (n = 11; 10%), and AIDS subgroups IV-C1 (n = 62; 54%) and IV-D (n = 10; 9%). Overall, 84 patients (74%) were i.v. drug abusers, 24 (21%) were homosexuals, and six (5%) were partners at risk. Zidovudine (AZT) was administered to 94 patients (82%). Opportunistic infections and/or secondary malignancies were detected in 72 patients (63%). Electrocardiographic changes were of little clinical relevance. Of 72 AIDS patients, 47 (65.2%) presented a cardiac involvement: 12 subjects (16.6%) were affected by a dilated cardiomyopathy, 13 (18%) by pericardial effusion, three (4.1%) by mitral valve prolapse, four (5.5%) by myocarditis, five (6.9%) by valvular bacterial endocarditis, and 10 (13.8%) by alterations of left ventricle regional contractility. During a mean follow-up period of 44 months, 29 AIDS patients (40.2%) died. Death was attributed to a cardiac event in four patients; autopsy could be performed in 24 of the 29 patients who died. Our results demonstrate that heart involvement is present in 45.6% of HIV-infected patients, but only in the end-stage of the disease (AIDS) and it is presumably due to opportunistic infections and/or secondary malignancies.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections↗

PubMed1991

[Noninvasive evaluation of left ventricular function in alcoholics before and after suspension of ethanol abuse].

It is known that chronic alcoholism causes morphological changes of the myocardium before the development of a specific dilated cardiomyopathy. We studied a group of chronic alcoholics, with normal arterial pressure and without clinical evidence of liver cirrhosis, to evaluate left ventricular function, both before and after withdrawal of ethanol. A M-B mode echo recording of the left ventricle and left ventricular inflow Doppler velocimetry with carotid pulse tracing was performed in each patient within 24 hours of the last alcohol consumption and after a period of abstinence at least 3 weeks. We analysed parameters of left ventricular systolic and diastolic functions, in comparison with a group of normal subjects well matched for age, body surface area and heart rate. The results showed that, in the group of alcoholics, a cardiac hypertrophy exists with increased left ventricular mass and normal parameters of left systolic ventricular function, but with altered ratio PEP/LVET. This last result is the consequence of an abnormal left diastolic ventricular function, as demonstrated from the analysis of the Doppler indexes of left ventricular filling (lower ratio E/A). Left ventricular inflow Doppler velocimetry showed different results in alcoholics and control subjects in the early diastolic flow velocity peak (61 +/- 12 vs 84 +/- 8) and in the peak flow velocity in the atrial contraction phase (62 +/- 10 vs 40 +/- 5.6). We have not observed any change of the echocardiographic parameters after the short period of alcohol withdrawal. We advance the hypothesis that there is an altered diastolic function depending, not only on the hypertrophy of the myocardium, but also on the myocardial interstitial involvement caused by ethanol.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Continuous monitoring by biplane transesophageal echocardiography of pulmonary and paradoxical embolism.

Paradoxical embolism is considered a relatively uncommon disease. Continuous biplane transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) was performed in a 64-year-old woman who had an acute pulmonary embolism. TEE showed an elongated formation highly mobile within both atria. It was trapped in the interatrial septum, passing through a patent foramen ovale. Systemic embolism of the right arm was noted. The patient died 5 hours after admission, and postmortem examination confirmed the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism. This case demonstrates the potential utility of TEE in the study of patients with suspected paradoxical embolism.

Echocardiography, Transesophageal↗