Valor do escore de calcio coronariano para prever a gravidade ou complexidade da doenca arterial coronariana

FUNDAMENTO: A previsão de gravidade ou complexidade da doença arterial coronariana (DAC) é valiosa devido ao aumento do risco de eventos cardiovasculares. Embora a associação entre o escore do cálcio arterial coronariano (CAC), e a gravidade da DAC pelo escore Gensini não tenha sido utilizado, já foi anteriormente demonstrado. Não há informações sobre a associação entre o escore do CAC total e a complexidade da DAC. OBJETIVOS: Investigar a associação entre a gravidade ou complexidade da doença arterial coronariana (DAC), avaliada pelo escore Gensini e SYNTAX (SS), respectivamente, e o escore do cálcio arterial coronariano (CAC), um método não invasivo para avaliação de DAC em pacientes sintomáticos com DAC significativa. MÉTODOS: Duzentos e quatorze pacientes foram incluídos. A pontuação total do CAC foi obtido antes da angiografia. A severidade e complexidade da DAC foram avaliadas pelo escore Gensini e SS, respectivamente. Foram analisadas as associações entre parâmetros clínicos e angiográficos e o escore total do CAC. RESULTADOS: A mediana do escore total do CAC foi de 192 (23,0-729,8), e correlacionou-se positivamente com ambos os escores Gensini (r: 0,299, p < 0,001) e ES (r: 0,577, p < 0,001). Na análise multivariada associou-se independentemente com a idade (ß: 0,154, p: 0,027), sexo masculino (ß: 0,126, p: 0,035) e ES (ß: 0,481, p < 0,001). A análise da curva ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristics) revelou um valor de corte > 809 para ES > 32 (tercil de SS alto). CONCLUSÃO: Em pacientes sintomáticos com DAC significativa, o escore total de CAC foi independentemente associado com SS e os pacientes com SS > 32 podem ser detectados através de escore Agatston alto.

Excesso de Peso, Variáveis Antropométricas e Pressão Arterial em Escolares de 10 a 18 Anos

Fundamento: Estima-se que a prevalência de hipertensão em crianças e adolescentes varie entre 1-13%. O excesso de peso e a obesidade central estão relacionados aos níveis pressóricos em adultos e podem ser importantes na patogênese precoce da HAS quando presentes na infância. Objetivos: Identificar a associação entre variáveis antropométricas e níveis pressóricos em escolares de 5.ª a 8.ª séries e avaliar qual medida obteve maior correlação com a medida dos níveis pressóricos. Métodos: Estudo transversal contemporâneo com amostra de base populacional probabilística por conglomerados em escolas públicas do ensino fundamental de Porto Alegre, de alunos matriculados entre a 5.ª e a 8.ª série. Foram coletados dados sobre fatores de risco familiares e antropometria. A análise estatística incluiu correlações e ajuste dos intervalos de confiança para conglomerados. Resultados: A média de idade dos participantes foi de 12,57 (± 1,64) anos, dos quais 55,2% eram do sexo feminino. Encontraram-se 11,3% da amostra com níveis pressóricos alterados e 16,2% com valores limítrofes. Das variáveis antropométricas analisadas, a que demonstrou maior correlação com valores pressóricos aumentados foi o diâmetro do quadril (r = 0,462, p < 0,001) seguido de circunferência abdominal menor (r = 0,404, p < 0,001) e prega cutânea abdominal (r = 0,291, p < 0,001). Conclusão: Foi observada associação entre as circunferências da cintura e dobras cutâneas e níveis pressóricos aumentados nos escolares da amostra. Portanto, é de fundamental importância que a aferição da pressão arterial e as medidas de cintura e quadril sejam rotina nos serviços de saúde de forma precoce a fim de prevenir essa condição patológica.

Intervenções em Dieta e Pressão Arterial na América Latina - Revisão Sistemática e Meta-Análise

Fundamento: Pressão arterial elevada é o principal fator de risco para doenças cardiovasculares. Baixos índices de controle da pressão arterial em populações latino-americanas reforçam a necessidade de reunir evidências sobre terapias eficazes. Objetivo: Avaliar o efeito das intervenções de modificações de dietas sobre pressão arterial em populações latino-americanas. Métodos: Revisão sistemática. Foram pesquisadas diversas bases de dados (MEDLINE-PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, Web of Science, Scopus, SciELO, LILACS e BVS) e realizada busca manual até abril de 2013. Foram incluídos estudos paralelos de intervenções em dieta em populações adultas da América Latina reportando pressão arterial (em mmHg) antes e após a intervenção. Resultados: Dos 405 estudos encontrados, 10 ensaios clínicos randomizados foram incluídos e divididos em 3 subgrupos, de acordo com a dieta proposta como intervenção. Houve redução não significativa da pressão arterial sistólica nos subgrupos de substituição mineral -4,82 (IC 95%: -11,36 a 1,73 mmHg) e padrões complexos -3,17 (IC 95%: -7,62 a 1,28 mmHg). Para a pressão arterial diastólica, com exceção do subgrupo de dietas hiperproteicas, todos os subgrupos apresentaram redução significativa, com -4,66 (IC 95%: -9,21 a -0,12 mmHg) e -4,55 (IC 95%: -7,04 a -2,06 mmHg) para substituição mineral e padrões complexos, respectivamente. Conclusão: A evidência disponível sobre os efeitos de alterações de dieta na pressão arterial em populações latino-americanas indica um efeito homogêneo, porém não significativo, para pressão arterial sistólica. Estudos maiores e com maior rigor metodológico são necessários para construção de evidência robusta.

Tai Chi Chuan for Cardiac Rehabilitation in Patients with Coronary Arterial Disease

Background:Several studies have shown that Tai Chi Chuan can improve cardiac function in patients with heart disease.Objective:To conduct a systematic review of the literature to assess the effects of Tai Chi Chuan on cardiac rehabilitation for patients with coronary artery disease.Methods:We performed a search for studies published in English, Portuguese and Spanish in the following databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS and Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials. Data were extracted in a standardized manner by three independent investigators, who were responsible for assessing the methodological quality of the manuscripts.Results:The initial search found 201 studies that, after review of titles and abstracts, resulted in a selection of 12 manuscripts. They were fully analyzed and of these, nine were excluded. As a final result, three randomized controlled trials remained. The studies analyzed in this systematic review included patients with a confirmed diagnosis of coronary artery disease, all were clinically stable and able to exercise. The three experiments had a control group that practiced structured exercise training or received counseling for exercise. Follow-up ranged from 2 to 12 months.Conclusion:Preliminary evidence suggests that Tai Chi Chuan can be an unconventional form of cardiac rehabilitation, being an adjunctive therapy in the treatment of patients with stable coronary artery disease. However, the methodological quality of the included articles and the small sample sizes clearly indicate that new randomized controlled trials are needed in this regard.

Association of Peripheral Arterial and Cardiovascular Diseases in Familial Hypercholesterolemia

Background: Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is an autosomal dominant genetic disease characterized by an elevation in the serum levels of total cholesterol and of low-density lipoproteins (LDL- c). Known to be closely related to the atherosclerotic process, FH can determine the development of early obstructive lesions in different arterial beds. In this context, FH has also been proposed to be a risk factor for peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Objective: This observational cross-sectional study assessed the association of PAD with other manifestations of cardiovascular disease (CVD), such as coronary artery and cerebrovascular disease, in patients with heterozygous FH. Methods: The diagnosis of PAD was established by ankle-brachial index (ABI) values ≤ 0.90. This study assessed 202 patients (35% of men) with heterozygous FH (90.6% with LDL receptor mutations), mean age of 51 ± 14 years and total cholesterol levels of 342 ± 86 mg /dL. Results: The prevalences of PAD and previous CVD were 17% and 28.2 %, respectively. On multivariate analysis, an independent association between CVD and the diagnosis of PAD was observed (OR = 2.50; 95% CI: 1.004 - 6.230; p = 0.049). Conclusion: Systematic screening for PAD by use of ABI is feasible to assess patients with FH, and it might indicate an increased risk for CVD. However, further studies are required to determine the role of ABI as a tool to assess the cardiovascular risk of those patients.

Determinants of Functional and Structural Properties of Large Arteries in Healthy Individuals

Background: Changes in the properties of large arteries correlate with higher cardiovascular risk. Recent guidelines have included the assessment of those properties to detect subclinical disease. Establishing reference values for the assessment methods as well as determinants of the arterial parameters and their correlations in healthy individuals is important to stratify patients. Objective: To assess, in healthy adults, the distribution of the values of pulse wave velocity, diameter, intima-media thickness and relative distensibility of the carotid artery, in addition to assessing the demographic and clinical determinants of those parameters and their correlations. Methods: This study evaluated 210 individuals (54% women; mean age, 44 ± 13 years) with no evidence of cardiovascular disease. The carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity was measured with a Complior® device. The functional and structural properties of the carotid artery were assessed by using radiofrequency ultrasound. Results: The means of the following parameters were: pulse wave velocity, 8.7 ± 1.5 m/s; diameter, 6,707.9 ± 861.6 μm; intima-media thickness, 601 ± 131 μm; relative distensibility, 5.3 ± 2.1%. No significant difference related to sex or ethnicity was observed. On multiple linear logistic regression, the factors independently related to the vascular parameters were: pulse wave velocity, to age (p < 0.01) and triglycerides (p = 0.02); intima-media thickness, to age (p < 0.01); diameter, to creatinine (p = 0.03) and age (p = 0.02); relative distensibility, to age (p < 0.01) and systolic and diastolic blood pressures (p = 0.02 and p = 0.01, respectively). Pulse wave velocity showed a positive correlation with intima media thickness (p < 0.01) and with relative distensibility (p < 0.01), while diameter showed a positive correlation with distensibility (p = 0.03). Conclusion: In healthy individuals, age was the major factor related to aortic stiffness, while age and diastolic blood pressure related to the carotid functional measure. The carotid artery structure was directly related to aortic stiffness, which was inversely related to the carotid artery functional property.

Quality of Life on Arterial Hypertension: Validity of Known Groups of MINICHAL

Introductions: In the care of hypertension, it is important that health professionals possess available tools that allow evaluating the impairment of the health-related quality of life, according to the severity of hypertension and the risk for cardiovascular events. Among the instruments developed for the assessment of health-related quality of life, there is the Mini-Cuestionario of Calidad de Vida en la Hipertensión Arterial (MINICHAL) recently adapted to the Brazilian culture. Objective: To estimate the validity of known groups of the Brazilian version of the MINICHAL regarding the classification of risk for cardiovascular events, symptoms, severity of dyspnea and target-organ damage. Methods: Data of 200 hypertensive outpatients concerning sociodemographic and clinical information and health-related quality of life were gathered by consulting the medical charts and the application of the Brazilian version of MINICHAL. The Mann-Whitney test was used to compare health-related quality of life in relation to symptoms and target-organ damage. The Kruskal-Wallis test and ANOVA with ranks transformation were used to compare health-related quality of life in relation to the classification of risk for cardiovascular events and intensity of dyspnea, respectively. Results: The MINICHAL was able to discriminate health-related quality of life in relation to symptoms and kidney damage, but did not discriminate health-related quality of life in relation to the classification of risk for cardiovascular events. Conclusion: The Brazilian version of the MINICHAL is a questionnaire capable of discriminating differences on the health‑related quality of life regarding dyspnea, chest pain, palpitation, lipothymy, cephalea and renal damage.

Neurinoma retropharyngeo contendo cystos em communicação com a circulaççao arterial

Apresentamos um caso de neurinoma retropharyngeo que offereceu consideravel difficuldade no diagnostico em vida do paciente. A existencia, em sua espessura, de cavidades que, punccionadas, davam sahida a sangue rutilante, constituio feição clinica peculiar. O diganostico só foi possivel post-mortem, o estudo histologico revelando um neurinoma com extensas áreas de necrose, inflammação purulenta e hemorrhagica. As cavidades encontradas são a consequencia desses processos. No momento da autopsia ellas apresentavam conteúdo francamente purulento, sendo a quantidade de coagulos sanguineos relativamente pequena, destacando-se os coagulos facilmente das paredes internas das cavidades. O diagnostico de aneurysma foi excluido pelo exame microscopico, o qual, tambem, não revelou, no tumor, a estructura de angioma ou de angiosarcoma. As hemorrhagias processadas nas áreas necrosadas reconhecem, provavelmente, como ponto de partida arterias ou arteriolas englobadas na massa tumoral. Estas se conservariam em communicação permanente com algumas cavidades originadas por necrose e desintegração dos tecidos do tumor. Assim seria explicada a sahida de sangue rutilante pela puncção das cavidades em vida do doente, a pressão do sangue em seu interior, e a rapida desapparição do meio de contraste na arteriographia. A origem do tumor não poude ser precisada. Não é fóra de proposito recordar o que dizem Wahl (1914) e Dawydow (1932). Segundo Wahl, embora os tumores compostos de elementos especificos do tecido nervoso possam derivar de qualquer ponto do systema nervoso, o maior numero delles tem sua origem, contudo, no systema sympathico. Estructuras cysticas são referidas em dois dentre quarenta e cinco casos de ganglioneuremas por elle colligidos na litteratura até aquella epocha. Em um delles, são: « cystic structures that are probably softened fibroma ». Dawydow (1932) refere um neurinoma retropharyngeo tendo origem no ganglío sympathico cervícal superior.

Tratamento da osteomielite por assepsia integral e penicilina intra-arterial: sutura primitiva e secundária da ferida

Os AA. apresentam dois casos de Osteomilite crônica submetidos durante anos a diversos tratamentos, sem resultado. Pela associação da assepsia integral com a Penicilina intra-arterial (via ainda não usada), conseguiram a cura após sutura primitiva num caso e secundária no outro. Por serem fátos excepcionais acham que devem ficar registrado.

Estudo do mecanismo da hiperglicemia e da hipertensão arterial, produzidas pelo veneno de escorpião, no cão

In the present paper we studied the mechanism of the hyperglycemia and hypertension evoked by the intravenous injection of scorpion venom (Tityus bahiensis) in the dog. We used 34 dogs, of both sex, weighing between 4.3 to 22 kg. These animals were divided in 3 groups and the following experiments were performed: in the first group (8 dogs) the animals were adrenalectomized after the intravenous injection of chlorpromazine; in the second group (16 dogs) the animals were injected with ganglionic blocking drugs (9.295 Ciba and hexamethonium); in the third group (10 dogs) the naimals were injected with dibenamine, and in 3 of them the adrenal glands were removed. The dogs of each group were injected intravenously with aqueous extract of 2 telsons of scorpion/kg; the average weight of each telson was 6,5 mg. The following results were obtained: 1) The hyperglycemia evoked by scorpion venom, in adrenalectomized dogs, was inhibited by chlorpromazine; 2) Ganglionic blocking drugs (9.295 Ciba and hexamthonium) were inefective as far as the hyperglycemic and pressor effects of venom are concerned; 3) In the animals treated with dibenamine, the venom produced a fall in blood pressure, both in the controle and in the adrenalectomized. The present experiments suggest that the scorpion venom has, besides the central action already described by other investigators, an adrenergic action, very similar to the adrenaline. On basis of our experiments we think that the adrenergic action is responsible, in part, by the productrion of hyperglycemia and hypertension.

The imidazoline receptors and the central regulation of the arterial blood pressure: a minireview

Recently, we proposed the hypothesis according to wich the central hypotensive effect of clonidine and related substances could be related to an action upon specific receptors, requiring the imidazoline or imidazoline-like structures, rather than alpha2-adrenoceptors. Since then, direct evidences have been accumulated to confirm the existence of a population of imidazoline specific binding sites in the brainstem of animals and man, more precisely in the Nucleus Reticularis Lateralis (NRL) region of the ventrolateral medulla (VLM), site of the antihypertensive action of clonidine. The purification of the putative endogenous ligand of the imidazoline receptors - named endazoline - is currently being attempted from human brain extracts. This new concept might at last lead to the expected dissociation of the pharmacological mechanisms involved, on the one hand, in the therapeutic antihypertensive effect, and on the other, in their major side-effect, which is sedation. In fact, it has been recently confirmed that hypotension is mediated by the activation of imidazoline preferring receptors (IPR) within the NRL region, while sedation is attributed to the inhibition of alpha2-adrenergic mechanisms in the locus coeruleus, which is involved in the control of the sleep-waking cycle. The IPRmay constitute on interesting target for new drugs in the treatment of arterial hypertension. Finally, dysfunctions of this modulatory system which could be involved in the pathophysiologyof some forms of the hypertensive disease are under investigation.

Systemic modulation of peripheral eosinophilia (air pouch model) in Schistosoma mansoni infection

Schistosoma mansoni infection induces in their hosts a marked and sustained eosinophilia, which is influenced or modulated by complex mechanisms, that vary according to the phase of infection. To address this phenomenon, we used the air pouch (AP) model in control and infected Swiss webster mice, analyzing the cellular, tissue response and local expression of adhesion molecules [CD18 (beta 2-chain), CD44, ICAM-1 (CD54), L-selectin (CD62L), CD49d (alpha 4-chain), LFA1 (CD11a)]. Infected animals were studied at 3 (pre-oviposition phase), 7 (acute phase), and 14 (chronic phase) weeks after infection (5-6 mice/period of infection). Normal mice were age-matched. Results showed that after egg stimulation, compared with matched controls, the infected mice, at each point of infection, showed a lower eosinophil response in the acute (7 weeks) and chronic phase (14 weeks) of infection. However, when the infected mice were in pre-oviposition phase (3 weeks) their eosinophil response surpassed the control ones. In the AP wall of infected mice, a significant decrease in the expression of ICAM-1 and CD44 in fibroblastic-like cells and a reduction in the number of CD18 and CD11a in migratory cells were observed. The other adhesion molecules were negative or weakly expressed. The results indicated that in the air pouch model, in S. mansoni-infected mice: (1) eosinophil response is strikingly down-regulated, during the acute ovular phase; (2) in the pre-oviposition phase, in contrast, it occurs an up-regulatory modulation of eosinophil response, in which the mechanisms are completely unknown; (3) in the chronic phase of the infection, the down modulation of eosinophil response is less pronounced; 4) Down-regulation of adhesion molecules, specially of ICAM-1 appear to be associated with the lower eosinophil response.