Discovery Of A Bone In Chimpanzee Hearts

The os cordis (heart bone) is a rare bone found only in a few animals in the world. We discovered an os cordis in some chimpanzees. The os cordis was found in males and females, and in young and old animals. It was not present in chimps with healthy hearts, only in those with severe heart disease. We also discovered that a tissue called cartilage was present around the bone. The presence of cartilage gives us clues about how and why these rare bones develop.

Safety Control Architecture for Ventricular Assist Devices

In patients with severe heart disease, the implantation of a ventricular assist device (VAD) may be necessary, especially in patients with an indication for heart transplantation. For this, the Institute Dante Pazzanese of Cardiology (IDPC) has developed an implantable centrifugal blood pump that will be able to help a diseased human heart to maintain physiological blood flow and pressure. This device will be used as a totally or partially implantable VAD. Therefore, performance assurance and correct specification of the VAD are important factors in achieving a safe interaction between the device and the patient’s behavior or condition. Even with reliable devices, some failures may occur if the pumping control does not keep up with changes in the patient’s behavior or condition. If the VAD control system has no fault tolerance and no system dynamic adaptation that occurs according to changes in the patient’s cardiovascular system, a number of limitations can be observed in the results and effectiveness of these devices, especially in patients with acute comorbidities. This work proposes the application of a mechatronic approach to this class of devices based on advanced control, instrumentation, and automation techniques to define a method to develop a hierarchical supervisory control system capable of dynamically, automatically, and safely VAD control. For this methodology, concepts based on Bayesian networks (BN) were used to diagnose the patient’s cardiovascular system conditions, Petri nets (PN) to generate the VAD control algorithm, and safety instrumented systems to ensure the safety of the VAD system.

Comparison of periodontal parameters between patients with ischemic and dilative cardiomyopathy

Background This cross-sectional study aimed in the comparison of periodontal parameters, number of remaining teeth and oral behaviour between patients with ischemic- (ICM) and non-ischemic dilative cardiomyopathy (DCM). Methods Patients with HF from the Department for Cardiac Surgery at the Heart Center Leipzig were included. The two groups (ICM and DCM) were composed by matching according to age, gender and smoking habits. All participants received a comprehensive periodontal examination, including a periodontal probing on six measurement points of each tooth. Results A total of 226 patients (n = 113 each group) was included. Patients in DCM group used interdental cleaning significantly more often than ICM (23.9% vs. 12.5%, p = 0.04). The majority of patients in both groups (ICM: 83.6%, DCM: 84.6%, p = 0.23) were diagnosed with stage III–IV periodontitis. Periodontal parameters were comparable between groups (p > 0.05). Variance analysis revealed no influence of the group (ICM vs. DCM) on the number of remaining teeth (p = 0.16), periodontitis stage (p = 0.27) or the periodontal inflamed surface area (p = 0.62). Conclusions Patients with severe HF show high periodontal burden, without any differences between ICM and DCM group. Therefore, increased attention should be payed to periodontal health of patients with severe heart disease, irrespective of their underlying disease.

Towards Comparing Machine Learning Models to Foresee the Stages for heart disease

With the increase in heart disease rates at advanced ages, we need to put a high quality algorithm in place to be able to predict the presence of heart disease at an early stage and thus, prevent it. Previous Machine Learning approaches were used to predict whether patients have heart disease. The purpose of this work is to compare two more algorithms (NB, KNN) to our previous work [1] to predict the five stages of heart disease starting from no disease, stage 1, stage 2, stage 3 and advanced condition, or severe heart disease. We found that the LR algorithm performs better compared to the other two algorithms. The experiment results show that LR performs the best with an accuracy of 82%, followed by NB with an accuracy of 79% when all three classifiers are compared and evaluated for performance based on accuracy, precision, recall and F measure.

Did the Baroque Composer Domenico Scarlatti Have Watch Glass Nails and Drumstick Fingers?

(1) Background: Little is known about the baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), whose life was centred behind closed doors at the royal court in Spain. There are no reports about his illnesses. From his compositions, mainly for harpsichord, an outstanding virtuosity can be read. (2) Case Presentation: In this case report, the only known oil painting of Domenico Scarlatti is presented, on which he is about 50 years old. In it one recognizes conspicuous hands with hints of watch glass nails and drumstick fingers. (3) Discussion: Whether Scarlatti had chronic hypoxia of peripheral body regions as a sign of, e.g., bronchial cancer or a severe heart disease, is not known. (4) Conclusions: The above-mentioned signs recorded in the oil painting, even if they were not interpretable at that time, are clearly represented and recorded for us and are open to diagnostic discussion from today's point of view.

A Review of Personality Type D on Cardiovascular Disease Patients

Introduction: The type of personality that a patient has as a psychosocial factor has been associated with the incidence and progression of cardiovascular disease. The aim of the study was to review the evidence and correlation between personality type and the development of cardiovascular disease.Methods: Articles were searched for using the PRISMA approach in the CINAHL, Science Direct and Scopus databases, limited to the last 5 years. The articles were from 2013 to 2018 and the language used was English. The studies focused on personality type D and cardiovascular disease, and the participants were above 18 years old.Results: Most of the findings of the studies showed that individuals with a type D personality have a relationship with more severe heart disease, which relates to several physiological factors, namely emotion increase, anxiety, stress, biological factors, cognitive decline and the decrease in quality of life.Conclusion: Individuals with type D personality have a higher level of stress, significant blood pressure, higher pulse and they experience an increase in cortisol compared to non-type D personalities. Individuals who suffer from cardiovascular disease with personality type D tend to experience a more severe progression of the condition of cardiovascular disease.

Amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis type 2: predictors and treatment options

Amiodarone-induced type 2 thyrotoxicosis remains a significant problem of modern endocrinology and cardiology. The unique pharmacological character and multifaceted properties of amiodarone explain its high prescription frequency and the leading position among antiarrhythmic drugs. In its turn, cytotoxicity and supra-physiological iodine content in the drug increase the risk of drug-induced destructive thyroiditis. The development of thyrotoxicosis leads to recurrence of cardiac arrhythmias, increased left ventricular dysfunction and manifestations of chronic heart failure. Correct identification of the type of thyrotoxicosis determines the subsequent patient management strategy. Glucocorticoids have been recognized as the first-line treatment among the possible therapy options. Rapid correction of thyrotoxicosis is crucial, especially in elderly patients with severe heart disease. Of interest for practical medicine is the search for specific predictors (deep understanding of the pathogenetic mechanisms) and new possibilities of therapy for amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis type 2.

Living With Prophylactic ICD Therapy and the Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death: How Patients Negotiate Solutions and Problems

Prophylactic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) therapy treats potentially lethal cardiac arrhythmias in patients who have not previously experienced such but are at considerable risk due to underlying heart disease. Most patients are unaware of their risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) until the ICD is introduced to them. Thus, the problem of risk of death and the solution of ICD therapy are presented simultaneously. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Danish hospitals, this article illustrates how clinicians narrate prophylactic ICD therapy as a benign therapy preventing risk of death and providing the good life. However, risk of SCD is not the most pressing problem for the patients. The article argues that the solution of ICD therapy ignores patients’ experience of living with severe heart disease and introduces the risk of shock therapy. For patients, a good life does not equal absence of risk of death but a life without heart disease.

An evaluation of cardiac murmurs in new-born

Background: Congenital heart disease (CHD) is defined as a structural abnormality of the heart or intrathoracic great vessels that is actually or potentially of functional significance. The aim of the study is to assess the prevalence of congenital heart disease in new-borns with cardiac murmurs and to study the spectrum of cardiac diseases in new-borns with cardiac murmur.Methods: All the new-borns with cardiac murmurs were evaluated with ECG, Chest X ray and ECHO. They were classified into normal, mild, moderate and severe heart disease.Results: Of the 3375 babies analysed, 80 babies had murmur. ECHO could not be done in 8 babies. Of the 72 babies, 75% of new-borns with murmur had cardiac disease. The prevalence of cardiac disease in this population is 16 per 1000 new-borns. The prevalence of cardiac disease in new-borns with murmur is 750 in 1000 new-borns .94.5% had acyanotic heart disease and 5.5% had cyanotic heart disease. VSD was the most common lesion. 13.9% had severe heart disease, 20.8% had moderate heart disease and 40.3% had mild cardiac disease. There was good correlation between the degree of murmur and the severity of the cardiac disease. Chest X ray contributed only 12.5% to diagnosis of cardiac disease and ECG contributed only 5.3% to the diagnosis. If both ECG and Chest X ray were abnormal,there was 100% association with significant cardiac disease. No correlation was found between gestational age and birth weight and severity of heart Disease.Conclusions: Present study has proved that any murmur in newborn requires evaluation with ECHO as 75% of new-borns with audible murmur had cardiac disease of which 34.7% was moderate to severe heart disease. Abnormal ECG and Chest X ray was 100% associated with severe heart disease.