Heart Failures

Scientists at ETH Zurich and the South African company Strait Access Technologies are using 3D printing to produce custom-made artificial heart valves from silicone. This could help meet an ageing population’s growing demand for replacement heart valves. The human heart has four chambers, each equip more

Every five minutes in Germany alone, a person dies of sudden cardiac arrest or fibrillation, the most common cause of death worldwide. This is partly due to the fact that doctors still do not fully understand exactly what goes on in the heart during the occurrence. Until now, it was impossible to vi more

Severe oxygen deficiency eventually leads to cardiac arrest. If the blood’s oxygen content cannot be rapidly re-established, the patient may die within minutes. American scientists have introduced air-filled microbubbles that could be used as an intravenous oxygen carrier to increase the survival ra more

Aims: Trastuzumab, one of the best known examples of personalized medicine, requires regular cardiac monitoring because it can cause heart failure. We aimed to assess the utilization of cardiac monitoring in women with nonmetastatic breast cancer receiving trastuzumab-based chemotherapy in routine c more

Abstract  The capillary bed constitutes a vast surface facilitating exchange of O2, substrates and metabolites between blood and organs. In contracting skeletal muscle capillary blood flow and O2 diffusing capacity as well as O2 flux may increase two orders of magnitude above resting. Chronic dise more

Abstract Introduction Decreased heart rate variability (HRV) is associated with adverse outcomes in patients with heart failure. Our objective was to examine whether decreased HRV predicts appropriate implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) shocks. Methods and results In 105 patien more