Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to R Griffo.
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The growing number of recipients of artificial heart valves draws ever more frequent attention to the problem of anticoagulant therapy, not only in its daily management but also in the event of specific conditions such as pregnancy, extra-cardiac surgery and invasive cardiac procedures in which specific measures must be adopted. In each case it is necessary to take into account not only the characteristics of the individual prosthesis but also those of the individual patient, each time making an overall assessment of the specific thromboembolic risk without forgetting possible complications of hemorrhage. This review examines the various mechanisms underlying the thromboembolic risk and, in the light of the leading literature on the topic, seeks to identify the most appropriate behaviors to adopt in the management of each individual case.
In the last few years the population referred to cardiac rehabilitation centers has changed profoundly: the number of survivors of acute cardiac events has increased and heart surgery is being proposed to ever greater numbers of elderly patients with frequent and greater comorbidities, which make the management of physical training programs more complex. Consequently, just as rehabilitation cardiologists have had to expand their field of analyses and professional skills and nurses have had to integrate their care protocols, physiotherapists too have had to adapt the management of motor rehabilitation programs to the various needs and problems of each patient in the different phases of recovery. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the procedures followed in our center concerning both the mode and contents of a standard course of motor rehabilitation for patients without complications and those for patients with complications. The paper analyzes the various assessments, the training program, the instruments of control and verification of the results, and discusses the instruments of intervention in patients affected by complications such as respiratory disturbances, musculoskeletal impairment, complications arising from injury, neurological deficit and severe deconditioning. Finally, the role of the physiotherapist in the active, propositive management of a recovery program is discussed.
AIMS: This study was designed to identify potential specialty-related differences in the epidemiology, clinical profile, management and outcome of patients hospitalized for congestive heart failure in departments of cardiology or internal medicine. METHODS AND RESULTS: From 1 July to 31 December 1998, we prospectively recorded epidemiological and clinical data from patients with congestive heart failure consecutively admitted to 11 departments of cardiology and 12 departments of internal medicine in Liguria, a northern area of Italy. The overall study population included 749 patients; 22% were treated by cardiologists and 78% by internists (P<0.0001). Patients managed by cardiologists were more likely to undergo echocardiography (92% vs 37%), Holter monitoring (25% vs 3%) and exercise stress testing (20% vs 0.5%) than those managed by internists (P=0.001). At discharge, patients treated by cardiologists were more likely to be prescribed beta-blockers (41% to 4%) and ACE inhibitors (100% to 74%) than those treated by internists (P<0.0001), and the latter medication at higher dosages by cardiologists than internists. In addition, patients followed by cardiologists were younger (70+/-9 to 79+/-1 years;P<0.0001), more likely to be male (61% to 50%;P=0.011) and to have coronary artery disease (57% to 45%;P<0.006) than those followed by internists. Conversely, patients followed by internists were more likely to have diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, atrial fibrillation and renal failure (P<0.03). In the overall study population, 53 patients (7%) died during hospitalization. Patients treated by cardiologists had a mortality not significantly different from that of patients treated by internists (10% and 6%, respectively;P=0.067), although congestive heart failure was more severe on admission in patients treated by cardiologists. CONCLUSION: Cardiologists follow published guidelines for congestive heart failure more strictly than internists, but treat a smaller number of patients who are younger, have more severe congestive heart failure and fewer co-morbidities than those managed by internists.
The role of digitalis in the treatment of patients with heart failure is still being debated. The DIG study, a trial which enrolled about 6800 patients with the aim at overcoming the doubts on efficiency and safety of digoxin, showed a neutral effect on mortality but there was a statistically significant decreased risk of hospitalization due to worsening heart failure in the digoxin group compared to the placebo group. The trial disclosed several problems about patient selection (many patients were on digitalis before the start of the trial), digoxin dosage, which seemed to be high, and about the true reported beneficial effects of this therapy. Finally the data available do not permit any evaluation on the use of beta-blockers and the association between digitalis and beta-blockers considering the properties of these drugs in suppressing orthosympathetic activation.
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According to the latest data available, in Italy a cardiac rehabilitation program is currently proposed to only 17% of patients after an acute myocardial infarction and to 76% of patients after a coronary artery bypass grafting. One possible explanation for this difference is an underestimation of the rehabilitating techniques and some doubts about its efficacy on the quality of life and on secondary prevention. Regarding secondary prevention, many research results and independent reviews are now available and they give us the opportunity to develop a sufficiently evidence-based analysis of cardiac rehabilitation program results. Great improvements in functional capacity and substantial changes in the way of life seem to have been demonstrated, with good-health oriented behaviors and improvements in the whole risk profile (less cigarette smoking, more sports activities, less stress, improvement in lipid profile). It has been well proven that with comprehensive rehabilitation programs, there is a relevant slow down in atherosclerosis progression. Rehabilitation programs also have favorable effects on the quality of life in patients with cardiac disorders, with fewer symptoms and more psychological and social well being. Three high-quality meta-analyses resulted in a significant reduction in total and cardiovascular mortality, mostly linked to sudden death and fatal reinfarction reduction, equal to the one obtained by currently recommended postinfarct treatments. Certainly, there are still difficulties to overcome before definitive conclusions can be reached, because of differences both in rehabilitation programs in the various studies and because of the results achieved in recent years through changes in the pharmacological approach to secondary prevention. The Global Secondary Prevention Strategies to Limit Event Recurrence After Myocardial Infarction (GOSPEL study) from the Italian Study Group on Cardiac Rehabilitation (GICR) has been designed to answer to some of these questions. One of its goals is to evaluate whether an intensive intervention of cardiac rehabilitation in the postinfarct patients is actually applicable and efficacious.
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(1) The microgeographic structure of Sardinia, well documented from a historical and linguistic point of view, further supported by archaeological evidence, can also be dissected at the genetic level: gene frequencies show heterogeneities which are statistically significant. (2) Dendrogram analyses performed with different methods lead to the same result: even if gene frequencies cluster linguistically defined geographic domains in agreement with historical and archaeological evidence, no phylogenetic tree can be inferred, very likely because the assumptions which allow a phylogenetic tree to be a valid model of evolution (mainly constant evolutionary rates and independence between branches) do not apply to the genetic history of Sardinia. (3) Evidence of a qualitative association between distribution of genes and distribution of languages or dialects seems to emerge also at the microgeographic level of our analysis. More linguistic and genetic data are planned to be considered.
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In 183 consecutive patients with recent, uncomplicated myocardial infarction, the following variables were associated with 4-year cardiac death: haemodynamic decompensation with exercise (P = 0.01), left ventricular ejection fraction at rest (P = 0.004) and at peak exercise (P = 0.003), persistent ST segment elevation at rest in the area of infarction = (P = 0.004), exercise-induced ST segment elevation (P = 0.02), and late aneurysmal evolution (P = 0.01). Exercise left ventricular ejection fraction was the sole variable selected by Cox regression analysis as an independent predictor of cardiac death. In 40 patients with ST segment elevation at rest, left ventricular ejection fraction was 42 +/- 17% at rest and 40 +/- 18% at peak exercise, versus 52 +/- 12% and 52 +/- 14% in the remaining patients (both P less than 0.01). Among these 40, 16 (all with anterior infarction) also had exercise-induced ST segment elevation; their ejection fraction was 32 +/- 13% at rest, 30 +/- 13% during exercise, versus 53 +/- 15% and 53 +/- 15% in 129 patients with no ST segment elevation either at rest, or during exercise (both P less than 0.01). The 4-year risk of death was 20% in the former 40 patients, 36% in the latter 16, while in the complete absence of ST segment elevation, such risk was 3%. All 14 patients with ST segment elevation only during exercise were alive after 4 years: their left ventricular ejection fraction was 47 +/- 12% at rest, 45 +/- 13% with exercise. ST segment elevation was associated with late aneurysmal evolution but not with exercise-induced ischaemia.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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To assess the usefulness of a step by step evaluation of exercise left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), 219 consecutive patients with recent uncomplicated myocardial infarction and 30 normal subjects underwent a symptom-limited cycloergometer test followed by exercise radionuclide ventriculography (ExRNV). LVEF was monitored throughout the whole test. 49 patients underwent coronary arteriography for clinical reasons. 5 patterns of exercise LVEF could be observed: progressive increase: 55 patients (25%) and 27 normal subjects (90%); progressive decrease: 37 patients (17%); initial increase followed by significant decrease: 54 patients (25%); lack of initial modification and terminal decrease: 35 patients (16%); no modification: 38 patients (17%) and 3 normal subjects (10%). Grouping the patients in this fashion allowed us to increase the specificity of ExRNV from 70% to 100%, without loss of sensitivity (95%). As for the patients in subgroup C, 32/54 showed unequivocal ECG ischaemic changes, occurring simultaneously with LVEF decrease; in 33/54 LVEF dropped during the last workload; in 25/54 the last stage LVEF was equal to or higher than the basal LVEF. The statistical analysis showed that ischaemic ECG changes (P less than 0.0001), exercise-induced wall-motion abnormalities (P less than 0.0001), and the presence of multivessel coronary artery disease (P less than 0.0001) were significantly more frequent in patients showing patterns (b)-(d), which should be considered as ischaemic. Our method allowed the unequivocal identification of ischaemic patterns in LVEF during exercise, which might be missed if only its basal and final values are considered.
In order to assess the reliability of left ventricular ejection fraction as estimated by gated blood pool method, radionuclide angiography (LAO) and single plane (RAO) contrast cineangiocardiography were performed within 14 days in 60 patients with coronary artery disease. The mean value of radionuclide ejection fraction was found to be 55 +/- 16%; contrast cineangiographic ejection fraction was 57 +/- 15%; r = 0.92. In 23 patients with previous anterior myocardial infarction gated blood pool method was found to underestimate left ventricular ejection fraction when compared with contrast cineangiography. The observed underestimation was wide significant in 11 patients with previous anterior infarction, low (less than 50%) radioisotopic ejection fraction and septal akinesia and/or apical dyskinesia; radionuclide ejection fraction = 33 +/- 8%; contrast cineangiographic ejection fraction = 42 +/- 9%; r = 0,76. This study confirms that the values of left ventricular ejection fraction as estimated by gated blood pool method in coronary patients are quite reliable; moreover, the intrinsic variability of the data is low. This may be not true in patients with previous anterior myocardial infarction. The Authors discuss the possible causes of disagreement between radioisotopic and contrastographic ejection fraction in patients with previous anterior infarction and poor left ventricular function: physical problems of measuring ejection fraction by gated blood pool in dilated ventricles; possible mistakes in evaluating blood pool due to the low mobility of the blood mass nearest to the scintillation camera; inhability of contrast cineangiography in RAO to recognize the interventricular septum and evaluate its kinetic abnormalities; unreliability of the geometrical model of revolution elypsoid in calculating end-systolic volumes in ventricles with abnormal wall-kinesis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
In order to assess the short-term reproducibility of the most important ergometric parameters, 108 males (mean age 50.3 +/- 7.8 years) underwent a functional stress test (FST) on average 35 days after myocardial infarction. The exercise test was repeated 3 days later in the same conditions. Patients were fasting and in pharmacological washout. The following parameters were analyzed: total work performed (TWP), VO2, heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), arrhythmias and S-T segment depression and elevation. TWP and VO2 values did not show any significant difference during the two tests under the various workloads. HR and SBP responses proved to be well reproducible in patients with HR and SBP not exceeding the mean values obtained from 222 normal subjects who underwent the same exercise test by more than +/- 1 SD; reproducibility was significantly lower in the other patients, particularly in patients with HR and SBP exceeding normal values by more than +/- 1 SD. Therefore, in this case, further FST are necessary to obtain more reliable parameters to decide on individual pharmacological and exercise prescriptions. Arrhythmias were reproducible up to 67% (p less than 0.01) regardless of Lown's class and the presence of S-T segment depression or elevation. S-T segment depression or elevation was reproducible up to 100%.
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