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F Loperfido

Publications and source records attributed to F Loperfido.

120 records · Page 7Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Oral nifedipine in the long-term management of severe chronic heart failure.

We evaluated the hemodynamic effects of nifedipine in 10 symptomatic patients with chronic refractory heart failure due to idiopathic cardiomyopathy. Nifedipine significantly increased cardiac index (from 1.80 +/- 0.4 to 3 +/- 0.6 L/min/m2), stroke volume index (from 21 +/- 6 to 33 +/- 8 ml/beat/m2), and stroke work index (from 17.9 +/- 7 to 25.5 +/- 7 g-m/m2). The drugs also produced a significant decrease in left ventricular filling pressure (from 24.6 +/- 3 to 19 +/- 2 mm Hg), mean blood pressure (from 86 +/- 9 to 74 +/- 5 mm Hg), mean pulmonary arterial pressure (from 31.9 +/- 5 to 25.6 +/- 3 mm Hg), total systemic vascular resistance (from 2,104 +/- 329 to 1,088 +/- 249 dyn/s/cm-5), and pulmonary vascular resistance (from 200 +/- 71 to 107 +/- 50 dyn/s/cm-5). Heart rate remained unchanged. In all patients maintained on nifedipine therapy, repeat hemodynamic studies at 2 months revealed sustained effects, and all patients had symptomatic improvement of at least one New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class. Long-term treatment was well tolerated. Forty-eight hours after discontinuation of nifedipine administration the hemodynamic benefits were lost. We conclude that nifedipine may be of value for long-term ambulatory therapy of severe chronic heart failure.

Administration, Oral↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Echocardiographic imaging in coronary artery disease: new techniques.

When analyzing left ventricular wall motion and thickening, two-dimensional echocardiography (2DE) represents a useful non-invasive tool for diagnosing and stratifying ischemic heart disease. New important technical advancements, such as harmonic imaging, allow to overcome limitations due to poor echocardiographic image quality in a large proportion of patients. Combination of exercise or pharmacological stress test with on-line echo images monitoring expands 2DE diagnostic and prognostic value in both ischemia or viability assessment. Study of contrast agents distribution is very promising for clarifying the complex interaction between myocardial perfusion and functional correlates, including myocardial stunning, hibernation and no-reflow phenomena. Direct visualization of epicardial coronary arteries and assessment of coronary artery blood flow has recently been demonstrated to be possible by either transthoracic (TTE) or transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). Acoustic quantification (AQ), automatic border detection (ABD), tissue Doppler imaging (TDI), and color kinesis are other technical modalities which may result to be useful for clinical evaluation of patients with either acute or chronic coronary syndromes.

Contrast Media↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Myocardial contrast echocardiography: a new tool in the noninvasive assessment of perfusion.

Although the ability to visualize the microvascular circulation by injection of microbubbles has been recognized for over 30 years, only recently the considerable progress in both ultrasound techniques and new contrast media has made myocardial contrast echocardiography a reliable, noninvasive method for the assessment of regional myocardial perfusion. Several clinical studies have validated this technique for the identification of resting myocardial perfusion defects after myocardial infarction and the detection of no-reflow in ischemia-reperfusion model. In addition, preliminary studies have shown the ability of this method to recognize regional myocardial ischemia during pharmacological stress tests in known or suspected coronary artery disease. Finally, in the experimental setting, the estimation of different degrees of severity of coronary artery stenosis has been proposed using the quantitative assessment of myocardial perfusion by time-intensity curves. Although to date some unresolved questions hinder the routine clinical application of this novel noninvasive technique, myocardial contrast echocardiography is close to providing significant advances in the ultimate goal of any cardiac imaging technique, i.e. the simultaneous assessment of both perfusion and function.

Contrast Media↗