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Archive for the ‘Cardiology – Clinical’ Category

How do you diagnose reinfarction ?

Posted in Cardiology - Clinical, cardiology -Therapeutics, Infrequently asked questions in cardiology (iFAQs), tagged , , , , , , , , on August 15, 2008| 1 Comment »

Recurrent myocardial infarction following an ACS is a fairly common clinical problem. Many times this is not recognised because it is difficult to establish the diagnosis.

The issues relevant here is

When does the first infarct (Index infact) process end ? and when the second infarct process start ?

Can the first infarct be a STEMI and the reinfarct be NSTEMI ? ( Dual acute coronary syndrome )

The only way to confirm a diagnosis of reinfarction is to document raising titres of cardiac enzymes and second peaking of CPK MB . New fresh ST elevation after a succesful thrombolysis is also a useful sign. But ST elevation in a q lead simply reflects a wall motion defect . So it requires enzymes to confirm it.

When there is tachycardia the ST segments tend to elevate following MI.

Other confounders are Infarct expansion and infarct extension .

These are macropathological entities almost impossible to dignose with surface ECG. What we diagnose as re-infarction could be an infact a infarct expansion.The modern terminology for infarct expansion is ventricle remodeling .The extreme remodeling results in ventricular aneurysm .Adverse acute ventricular remodeling can closely mimic a reinfarction .

What is clinical relevance of diagnosing reinfarction ?

Nothing great !

In modern day cardiology it is not a bother whether the infarct is expanding, extending or reinfarcting !All one has to do in a patient with chest pain ,showing a fresh ST elevation following STEMI is to take him/her to cath lab .

The only issue here one has to remember there are mechanical cause also for ST elevation following STEMI .

Dr.S.Venkatesan,Madras medical college, Chennai.

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What is pulse deficit ? What is the mechanism of pulse deficit ? Where does it occur ?

Posted in Cardiology - Clinical, Infrequently asked questions in cardiology (iFAQs), tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2008| 5 Comments »

Pulse deficit is a clinical sign wherein , one is able to find a difference in count between heart beat (Apical beat or Heart sounds ) and  peripheral pulse .This occurs even as the heart is  contracting , the pulse is not reaching the periphery.This can occur in few clinical situations .

1 . Atrial fibrillation.

2. Very early diastolic  ventricular  ectopic beats

3. Some patients with Pacemaker.

The mechanism is  , the ventricular contractions are  too weak and unable to open the aortic valve  (Or opens feebly*)  , but at the same time they are good enough to close the mitral valve. To open the aortic valve it has to generate atleast 60-80 mmhg pressure , while mitral valve closes even  as LV generates  8-14mmhg  .(LV/LA pressure cross over). So intermitently the  second heart sound  is missed while S1 is retained,  producing more heart sounds and less pulse count in the periphery. The S1 is either felt or heard at the apex but the corresponding pulse is missing . Further , this intermittent absence of  S2  results in totally irregular S1 /S 2 relation.

 

 

Why some of the contractions of LV is too weak to open the aortic valve ?

Because the RR interval varies , the ventricular filling also varies , diastole duration is constantly changing some of the diastole are too short  and LV hardly gets filled , as the LV force of contraction is directly decided by the LVEDV and LV  fibre length these contractions are too weak.

Other published studies

There has been some doppler observations ,where there is a midventricular LV blood flow reversal in atrial fibrillation that could  explain the pulse deficit . Mechanism of production of pulse deficit in atrial fibrillation: assessment by blood flow dynamics

Mawatari K, Sanada J, Kuroiwa N, Okumiya K, Nakamura K, Hashimoto S.

Second Department of Internal Medicine, Kagoshima University School of Medicine.

 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3221309

What is the clinical significance of pulse deficit ?

Currently there is no great clinical significance of this phenomenon. But an astute clinician will pick up this sign and it may indicate underlying LV dysfunction. In patients with PPM,  pulse deficit  suggests  pacemaker malfunction .Some patients with cardiac tamponade &  pulsus paradoxus  systolic  blood pressure falls too low to make the pulse feeble or not palpable in the periphery .This situation may mimic a pulse deficit if not recognised.

Dr.S.Venkatesan ,Madras Medical College , Chennai, India

* What is the evidence for intermittent absence or feeble Aortic valve opening in Atrial fibrillation ? I could find this from the book written by Harvey Feigenbaum. whom we consider Father of Echocardiography

 

 

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Land mark studies in cardiology – Diastolic Heart failure : Ejection fraction is preserved all right , but “The life” is not !

Posted in Cardiology - Clinical, Cardiology -unresolved questions, Cardiology-Land mark studies, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2008| 1 Comment »

The long standing controversy about diastolic heart failure is settled !

The perception that diastolic heart failure ( Now renamed as heart failure with preserved EF ) is less dangerous than systolic HF has been exposed by this land mark study by Owan TE, in 2006 (nejm) But unfortunately this information is not yet fully disseminated among the physician community. Hence this post, with due acknowledgment to NEJM & Owan et all.

Experts from the article

“The nosology of heart failure has been the
subject of much current debate, and some extreme
positions have been taken. The observation
that 22 to 29 percent of patients with diastolic
heart failure die within one year of hospital
discharge, and 65 percent die within five years,
is a reminder that we are facing a lethal condition,
regardless of its name. Owan et al. also
show that, in recent years, there has been little
improvement in survival rate among patients with
diastolic heart failure, in contrast to the improvement
in survival rate over time among patients
with systolic heart failure”

Have a look at the survival curve below, almost similar , surprise surprise ! DHF survival is not only worse ( in many ), than systolic CHF and further they respond poorly to treatment, compared to conventional systolic CHF .

Click below for the link to full text article

Short abstract :

Trends in prevalence and outcome of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

Owan TE, Hodge DO, Herges RM, Jacobsen SJ, Roger VL, Redfield MM.

Cardiorenal Research Laboratory, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minn 55905, USA.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction may be changing as a result of changes in population demographics and in the prevalence and treatment of risk factors for heart failure. Changes in the prevalence of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction may contribute to changes in the natural history of heart failure. We performed a study to define secular trends in the prevalence of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction among patients at a single institution over a 15-year period. METHODS: We studied all consecutive patients hospitalized with decompensated heart failure at Mayo Clinic Hospitals in Olmsted County, Minnesota, from 1987 through 2001. We classified patients as having either preserved or reduced ejection fraction. The patients were also classified as community patients (Olmsted County residents) or referral patients. Secular trends in the type of heart failure, associated cardiovascular disease, and survival were defined. RESULTS: A total of 6076 patients with heart failure were discharged over the 15-year period; data on ejection fraction were available for 4596 of these patients (76 percent). Of these, 53 percent had a reduced ejection fraction and 47 percent had a preserved ejection fraction. The proportion of patients with the diagnosis of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction increased over time and was significantly higher among community patients than among referral patients (55 percent vs. 45 percent). The prevalence rates of hypertension, atrial fibrillation, and diabetes among patients with heart failure increased significantly over time. Survival was slightly better among patients with preserved ejection fraction (adjusted hazard ratio for death, 0.96; P=0.01). Survival improved over time for those with reduced ejection fraction but not for those with preserved ejection fraction. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction increased over a 15-year period, while the rate of death from this disorder remained unchanged. These trends underscore the importance of this growing public health problem. Copyright 2006 Massachusetts Medical Society.

Other interesting article

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: dangerous, elusive, and difficult.

Eur Heart J. 2008 Feb;29(3):339-47. Nielsen OW, Køber L, Torp-Pedersen C.

BMJ editorail 2009

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/338/jan27_1/b52?ijkey=c7a29d35dc9d9dddf7d0e75c5b8d05014315c564

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Postural diastolic dysfunction:Is it the mechanism of orthopnea in CHF ?

Posted in Cardiology - Clinical, Infrequently asked questions in cardiology (iFAQs), tagged , , , , , , , on August 1, 2008| 2 Comments »

Orthopnea is a classical sign of established CHF.

While paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea is an early sign of cardiac failure,orthopnea is a late manifestation of cardiac failure .This symptom was mainly attributed to volume displacement from systemic venous to pulmonary circulation when the patient goes to recumbent posture.The exact mechanism of this has been speculative. Now with liberal usage of bedside echocardiography, we have found out there is postural variation in the diastolic function of the failing left venticle.

Many patients develop a restrictive ventricular filling pattern in recumbent posture (Grade 3 diastolic dysfunction). While sitting up some of them revert to normal or downgrade to grade 1 diastolic dysfunctionThis observation proves another fact that every patient with severe systolic dysfunction also has significant diastolic dysfunction at some point in their course of illness.

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Can medical managment save a patient with cardiogenic shock ?

Posted in Cardiology - Clinical, cardiology -Therapeutics, cardiology- coronary care, tagged , , , , , , , on July 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »

CCU’S can also save  patients with cardiogenic shock

Many of us would say ” never” or some may say “rarely” but in reality the answer is “yes it can ” slightly lower than  Primary PCI . One could save atleast  few  lives every month by  intensive medical  management alone (Inotrope, vasodilator,pacing if needed ) in any coronary care unit.

So the message here is, not offering or doing  a primary PCI in a patient with cardiogenic shock is not  synonymous with  inferior treatment or death.  After all, in the much hyped SHOCK  trial a significant no of patients survived in medical limb .

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Can primary neural pain originate from heart ?

Posted in Cardiology - Clinical, Infrequently asked questions in cardiology (iFAQs), tagged , , , , , , , , on July 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Are we missing an entity called Primary cardiac neuralgia ?

Unexplained chestpain even after elaborate investigation is a very common clinical cardiac problem. Cardiac neural plexus has a complex network with mainly autonomic network ,with somatic projections. Neural dysfunction could occur in any organ which has rich neural network.Diabetes is the classical example of cardiac autonomic dysfunction and result in silent ischemia. The same disease can result in stimulation of type c nerve fibres that could result in cardiac neuralgic pain , which we may wrongly attribute to ischemia. One of the manifestation of this phenomenon occurs in syndrome X .

Future research is aimed at

Imaging cardiac neurons and sympathetic receptors will shed light on this . But clinical experience has taught us there should be many other sources of cardiac pain other than ischemia and neural pain definitely plays an important role.

It may take years to prove this by evidence !

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How is LAD angina differnt from RCA angina ? Can we localise the “Angina related artery ” from the the type of chest pain ?

Posted in Cardiology - Clinical, Infrequently asked questions in cardiology (iFAQs), Tutorial in clinical cardiology, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 2, 2008| 1 Comment »

How is LAD angina differnt from RCA angina ?

Can we localise the “Angina related artery ”  from the  the type of chest pain ?

Patients with stable  angia  many times have  multivessel CAD. There has been some correlation with radiation of anginal pain and the culprit artery.If the angina spreads to jaw or neck it is possibleit might indicate RCA(RIGHT coronary angina) but rarely it indicates LAD/LCX lesions. if the angina radiates to left shoulder it virtually ruels out a RCA disease

Source .Braunwald 1992 Edition

Dr.S.Venkatesan ., Madras medical college. Chennai.

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