Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 16, Issue 26, 2010

In the last decade there has been made much progress in defining clinical diagnosis and therapy of cardiomyopathies. Initially, some new types of cardiomyopathies, such as Takotsubo and Non Compaction of the Myocardium Ventricle were better defined, which were then incorporated fully in the guidelines and classification tables. Alongside technological development new diagnostic approaches, have been suggested and thus Read More

Among the multiple pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic therapies, beta-blockers seem to be the mainstay of heart failure management. Although the first large studies failed to demonstrate a significant improvement in mortality, the results from subsequent studies revealed significant risk reductions in mortality with metoprolol, carvedilol and bisoprolol. Decision of the appropriate therapeutic agent depends Read More

Several publications have focused on the cardiotoxicity of specific classes of haematological therapeutic agents such as antracyclines and cyclofosfamide. Cardiotoxicity of cancer chemotherapeutics is a problem for patients of all ages, but it increases with age. Toxicity can also be developed months after the last chemotherapy dose, and late reactions can be seen years later when they present new-onset cardiomy Read More

Arrhythmias in left ventricular hypertrabeculation/noncompaction (LVHT) comprise sustained or non-sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) (n=135), atrial fibrillation (AF) (n=96) AV block (n=55) and QT prolongation (n=47). The prevalence differs between children and adults. In children most frequent are WPW-syndrome (n=24), AV block (n=24), VT (n=17) and bradycardia (n=15). In adults most frequent arrhythmias are VT ( Read More

Left ventricular hypertrabeculation / noncompaction (LVHT) is in the majority of the cases associated with hereditary cardiac or skeletal muscle disease or with chromosomal abnormalities. Depending on the study more than two thirds of the LVHT patients also present with a neuromuscular disorder (NMD). NMDs most frequently associated with LVHT are the Barth syndrome, mitochondrial disorders, zaspopathy, and myotoni Read More

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TC) is a condition most prevalent in postmenopausal women, characterized by transient left ventricular dysfunction following acute emotional or physical stress. Direct catecholamine-mediated myocyte injury and microvascular dysfunction leading to myocardial stunning are believed to play a major role in its pathogenesis. The treatment of TC remains empirical. In the acute phase, therapy must Read More

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy was first reported in Japan in 1990. Recently, an increasing number of case reports and reviews of takotsubo cardiomyopathy has been published worldwide, including atypical cases with inverted takotsubo cardiomyopathy or incidental coronary artery disease. To date, there has been no guideline for worldwide consensus on takotsubo cardiomyopathy diagnostic criteria and treatment. Read More

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) is a genetic heart muscle disease characterized by the peculiar right ventricular (RV) involvement. Distinctive pathologic features are myocardial atrophy and fibro-fatty replacement of the RV free wall, and clinical presentation is usually related to ventricular tachycardias with a left bundle branch block pattern or ventricular fibrillation leading to cardiac arrest, mos Read More

Cardiomyopathies (CM) are a very rare disease in fetuses with a very poor outcome. Only isolated case reports and small case series have been reported. According to the published studies we will describe the fetal CM starting from their echocardiographic presentation: dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) with dilatation of either or both ventricles and impaired ventricular function, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy ( Read More

Objective: This review focuses on the efficacy and safety of effective herbal medicines in the management of hyperlipidemia in human. Methods: PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and IranMedex databases were searched up to 11th May 2010. The search terms were “hyperlipidemia” and (“herbal medicine” or “medicine traditional”, “extract plant”) without narrowing or limiting search elements. All of Read More