Which coronary artery is called widow maker artery and why?
Coronary arteries are blood vessels supplying oxygenated blood to the heart muscle. LAD is short for left anterior descending coronary artery. LAD is usually the largest branch of the left main coronary artery which supplies the major portion of the left ventricle.
Hence blockage of LAD can cause a major heart attack, which can sometimes be fatal. That is why LAD has been called a widow maker artery. LAD supplies the front region of the left ventricle and the partition wall between the ventricles. Ventricles are the lower muscular pumping chambers of the heart.
When the LAD is blocked at its origin, the resulting damage to...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 24, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
How Significant is First Degree Heart Block?
First degree heart block is an abnormality in the electrical conduction of the heart noted on the ECG, the recording of the electrical activity of the heart. It is not a block in the blood vessels of the heart which we are more familiar with. The waves on an ECG are P, QRS complex and the T wave.
Normal interval between the onset of the P wave and the onset of QRS complex is up to one fifth of a second (0.2 seconds). When this interval is increased, it is called first degree heart block or first degree atrioventricular or AV block to be specific. Atria are the upper chambers of the heart and ventricles the lower chambers.
...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 23, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
Types of Ventricular Tachycardia
Three or more ventricular beats in a row at a rate above 100 per minute is termed ventricular tachycardia. Ventricular tachycardia lasting more 30 seconds or requiring termination earlier due to hemodynamic compromise is called sustained ventricular tachycardia. Non sustained ventricular tachycardia is one which lasts less than 30 seconds without hemodynamic compromise.
Based on the morphology, ventricular tachycardia can be classifed into monomorphic in which all beats have same morphology on ECG in a given lead and polymorphic in which there is beat to beat variation.
Polymorphic ventricular tachycardia with QT interval ...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 23, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
A Pacemaker quiz and a new concept.
This image comes with courtesy of the Journal of SCAI Jai Parekh, Vikram Sharma, Jared Robl,et al Journal of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions 3 (2024) 101310
What is your diagnosis ?
I thought, it was pacemaker extrusion. It was indeed a close answer, still terribly wrong. It is an intentional exterior placement of a permanent pacemaker generator mimicking an extrusion due to pocket infection. Here is a patient, where a permanent pacemaker was kept temporarily for a few weeks or a month in high-risk reversible complete heart block situations. This typically occurs after an inferior post...
Source: Dr.S.Venkatesan MD - April 22, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: dr s venkatesan Tags: Uncategorized chb after tavi chb risk with tavi core valve vs sapien how to use a permanent pacemaker as temporary ? how to use a ppm as tpm? mechansim of chb after tavi TAVR Source Type: blogs
Fractional flow reserve for guiding coronary intervention and functional SYNTAX score
Coronary angiography gives a visual impression about the severity of the stenosis. But it need not imply the actual functional significance of the stenosis in terms of flow physiology. It is often difficult to decide which are the flow limiting lesions when there are multiple stenoses in same or different territories. It is here that the fractional flow reserve estimation helps.
FFR is estimated using a guide wire with a pressure transducer. FFR wires have properties similar to the floppy guide wires so that they can passed across coronary lesions back and forth easily to assess the pressure drop across the lesions.
The f...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 22, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
Chest pain, resolved. Does it need emergent cath lab activation (some controversy here)? And much much more.
In this study, the major outcomes were the same for both groups, but of 70 patients in the delayed group,4 required emergent intervention for sudden re-occlusion. You can make your own conclusions. I think I would want to intervene before there is risk of re-occlusion.However, one could make a reasonable argument for delaying, especially if you would need to awaken your cath team in the middle of the night. It requires full antiplatelent and antithrombotic therapy, and, in my opinion, if you delay, you should institute continuous 12-lead ECG monitoring. This is why:1. Why we need cont...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - April 22, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
Relation Between Stroke and Heart Disease
Stroke is often due to sudden loss of blood supply to a region of the brain which usually results in paralysis of a part of the body. Stroke could also be due to bleeding into a part of the brain.
Strokes and heart disease are linked together in various ways. In general, risk factors for stroke and some forms of heart disease are similar. Strokes due to blocks in blood vessels, can be seen along with blocks in blood vessels of the heart.
Stroke can occur after a heart attack as well. Heart attack damages a part of the heart muscle. This can lead to damage of the inner lining of the heart in that region. A blood clot can fo...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 21, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 22nd 2024
This study reveals a potential treatment for human mitochondrial diseases.
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A Population Study Correlates Air Pollution with Faster Cognitive Aging
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/04/a-population-study-correlates-air-pollution-with-faster-cognitive-aging/
A number of large epidemiological studies provide evidence for long-term exposure to greater levels of air pollution to accelerate the onset and progression of age-related disease. A few of these manage to control for the tendency for wealthier people to avoid living in areas with higher particulate air pollution, ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 21, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
An Interview with Reason of Repair Biotechnologies on Reversal of Atherosclerosis
As some of you may know, I co-founded Repair Biotechnologies with Bill Cherman. The company is presently on the development of a gene therapy approach now demonstrated to rapidly reverse atherosclerosis in mice, the condition in which fatty plaques grow to narrow blood vessels and weaken blood vessel walls. One of the possible approaches to treating aging as a medical condition is to take the list of causes of human mortality, start at the top, and work down. Atherosclerosis is the single largest cause of death in our species, through the rupture of unstable atherosclerotic plaque leading to heart attack or stroke. The bur...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 18, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Who Needs a CT Coronary Angiogram?
CT coronary angiograms are increasing in popularity as a non-invasive screening test for detecting blocks in coronary arteries.
Coronary arteries are blood vessels supplying oxygenated blood to the heart.
Angiograms are images of blood vessels, usually obtained by injecting medications for contrast from body structures.
CT angiograms are reconstructions from multi slice CT scans following injection of contrast material into a forearm veins.
Veins are blood vessels returning deoxygenated blood to the heart.
CT coronary angiogram can be done as an outpatient test, in the X-ray department.
As of now CT angiograms cannot repla...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 18, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
Is OMI an ECG Diagnosis?
Written by Jesse McLaren A 70 year old with prior MIs and stents to LAD and RCA presented to the emergency
department with 2 weeks of increasing exertional chest pain radiating to the
left arm, associated with nausea. The pain recurred at rest 90 minutes prior to
presentation, felt like the patient ’s prior MIs, and was not relieved by 6
sprays of nitro. Paramedics provided another 3 sprays of nitro, and 6mg of
morphine, which reduced but did not resolve the pain. What do you think of the ECG, and does it
matter?There ’s normal sinus rhythm, LAFB, old anterior Q waves,
and no diagnostic sign of OMI. I sent th...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - April 18, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Jesse McLaren Source Type: blogs
Ventricular Tachycardia Management
Ventricular tachycardia is a potentially life threatening cardiac arrhythmia. If the rate is very fast, hemodynamic deterioration can occur rapidly. On the ECG, ventricular tachycardia can be defined as three or more ventricular ectopic beats occurring in a sequence at a rate more than 100 per minute.
Ventricular tachycardia which gets spontaneously terminated within 30 seconds is called non sustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) . Sustained ventricular tachycardia is one which does not get spontaneously terminated within 30 seconds or needs cardioversion before that due to hemodynamic compromise.
Based on the morphology...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 17, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
Need High Awareness of Symptoms of Heart Attack
High degree of awareness of heart attack symptoms in the community will go a long way in seeking early treatment. For life threatening diseases like heart attack, early recognition of symptoms and prompt reporting to the emergency department is highly desirable.
But a study from United States showed that 47% were not able to recognize some heart attack symptoms while 6% were not able to recognize any heart attack symptoms.
The main heart attack symptoms assessed by the study were:
Chest pain or discomfort
Shortness of breath
Pain or discomfort in arms or shoulders
Feeling weak, lightheaded, or faint
Jaw, neck, or back pai...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 16, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
Assessment of LV Diastolic Function by Echo in SR and AF
Echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular diastolic function with special reference on diastolic function assessment in atrial fibrillation.
Though there are several parameters for evaluation of left ventricular diastolic function by echocardiography, the most commonly used are the pulsed Doppler mitral E/A ratio and tissue Doppler mitral E/e’ ratio.
Some of the other useful parameters are mitral E velocity deceleration time, changes in mitral inflow with Valsalva maneuver, mitral L velocity, isovolumic relaxation time, left atrial maximum volume index, pulmonary vein systolic/diastolic velocity ratio, color M-mod...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 15, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 15th 2024
In conclusion, although several clinical trials targeting SnCs are ongoing, various questions about the biology of SnCs remain open, resulting in a gap between molecular and cellular data. Concerning the need, initiatives such as SenNet aiming to create openly accessible atlases of SnCs should contribute enormously to the area. Advances in understanding the subcellular structure, the heterogeneity, and the dynamics of SnCs require the integration of molecular and cellular techniques with data analysis packages to evaluate high throughput evidence from microscopy and flow cytometry. It is also necessary to develop new equip...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 14, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
