Tag Archives: cardiac remodelling

Introduction Regular intense exercise often results in a series of electrical, structural and functional changes, collectively named as the ‘athlete’s heart’.1 These include mild harmonic increases in cardiac chamber size and in left ventricular wall thickness.2 Athletes often exhibit sinus bradycardia, first-degree atrioventricular (AV) block, isolated QRS voltage criteria for right and left ventricular hypertrophy and early repolarisation.3 These physiological changes can closely mimic serious cardiac conditions, such as cardiomyopathies.4 The differentiation between ‘athlete’s heart’ and cardiomyopathies is crucial to prevent u

Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists Professor Faiez Zannad (Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France), the first of two guest lecturers, who has been an investigator in three major randomised controlled trials (RCT) of mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRA) in heart failure,1-3 opened the first session. There was a particular focus on the recent EMPHASIS-HF trial,3 which recruited heart failure (HF) patients with left ventricular systolic dysfunction (ejection fraction [EF] ≤30%, or EF 30-35% with QRS duration >130 ms) and mild symptoms (New York Heart Association [NYHA] class II). Eplerenone treatment resulted in a 37% relative