Tag Archives: cardiovascular

Introduction In late 2019, the first case of a patient with pneumonia of unknown cause was reported in Wuhan, China. The disease, called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), spread rapidly and caused a pandemic. The virus that causes this infection is called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).1 Besides respiratory tract disease, which is considered the main and most common clinical manifestation of COVID-19, other systems, including the cardiovascular system, could also be affected. Factors, such as tissue hypoxia, which results as the pneumonia progresses, and inflammation of the vessel walls, have been suggested a

Traditional methods of risk assessment for cardiovascular events use conventional risk factors to calculate risk often expressed as the 10-year Framingham Risk Score (10y FRS). However, these methods are far from perfect. Although they identify high-risk groups, if followed up these high-risk groups contain at best only a fraction of the events that will occur in the subsequent 10 years. In the Prospective Cardiovascular Munster (PROCAM) study 6.5% of the population were classified as high risk (10-year risk >20%), 14% as intermediate risk (10-year risk 10–20%) and 79.5% as low risk (10-year risk <10%). At 10 years, 33% of all the myo

This document has been produced by Commissioning Support for London, an organisation established by the capital’s 31 primary care trusts (PCTs), in response to Lord Darzi’s 2007 report which found that while there is excellence in healthcare in London, this excellence is not provided equally across the capital. The cardiovascular project has been split into three areas of work each with key objectives: Vascular services – specialist and emergency vascular services Cardiac surgery – all cardiac surgery, except paediatrics and transplants Cardiology – emergency and complex interventional cardiology procedures. The project is clinica

Case report Figure 1. Electrocardiogram (ECG) features of left ventricular hypertrophy A 67-year-old man was referred to the cardiology clinic with a history of collapse and a family history of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). He denied any history of angina or dyspnoea. On physical examination he had a 3/6 grade ejection murmur in the aortic area and a pansystolic murmur at the mitral area accentuated on squatting. There were no signs of volume overload. X-ray angiography demonstrated normal coronaries but a raised end diastolic pressure. His electrocardiogram (ECG) was compatible with left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy (figure 1). A single

New editorial board member We welcome general practitioner and diabetologist, Dr Neil Munro (left) to the BJC editorial board.Dr Munro has been a general practitioner in Surrey since 1984. He is also an Associate Specialist in Diabetes at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, and has worked in specialist hospital-based diabetes clinics since 1985. In addition, he has provided diabetes services for the practice for over two decades. He was research officer for the St Vincent’s Declaration Primary Care Diabetes Group in 1999 and Chairman of Primary Care Diabetes Europe (PCDE) from 2000–2005. His appointment underlines the BJC’s

The study, conducted by a group led by Dr Jacqueline Müller-Nordhorn (Charité University Medical Centre, Berlin, Germany), was published online on 5th February 2008 in the European Heart Journal. Using data from the European and national statistics offices, the authors calculated age-standardised mortality rates for ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease. They found a clear north-east to south-west gradient in mortality from cardiovascular disease. For cerebrovascular disease, however, the pattern is less clear, with the lowest mortality in the centre of Western Europe including France, northern Italy and Spain, and higher mor

Speaking to health professionals at King’s College, London, the PM said that, over time, everyone in England will have access to the right preventative health check-up. He said the first priority was to offer men over 65 a simple ultrasound test to detect early abdominal aortic aneurysm, which should save more than 1,600 lives each year. The government is also planning to introduce on the NHS a series of tests to identify vulnerability to heart and circulation problems.  “So there will soon be check-ups on offer to monitor for heart disease, strokes, diabetes and kidney disease – conditions which affect the lives of 6.2 million people,

The authors, from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, Canada, note that most studies of CV outcomes associated with rosigllitzaone and rosiglitazone have been conducted in patients younger than 65 years. Diabetes is most common in older patients. They analysed information on 159,026 diabetes patients (mean age 74.7 years) being treated with an oral hypoglycaemic agent from Ontario healthcare databases. The risks of congestive heart failure, MI, and death were compared between persons treated with rosiglitazone or pioglitazone and those given other oral hypoglycaemic agent combinations, after matching and adjustment for pr

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