Conventional Risk Factors, Telomere Length, and Ischemic Heart disease: Insights into the Mediation Analysis.

Telomere length is regarded as a potential biomarker of biological ageing and is associated with various age-related diseases, such as ischemic heart disease (IHD), myocardial infarction, peripheral vascular disease, and cancer. As there is a paucity of study that deals with this influence, this study aimed to assess how the cardiovascular risk factors influence the risk of IHD by performing mediation analysis. A total of 407 males were included in the study. IHD was diagnosed through echocardiography and coronary angiography by determining the number of coronary vessels involved. Demographic data, clinical history, and laboratory investigations such as random blood sugar (RBS), fasting lipid profile, serum creatinine, and serum urea levels of all the subjects were measured and recorded. Serum uric acid and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels were significantly higher in IHD subjects compared to non-IHD subjects (P < 0.05). Body mass index (BMI), glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), RBS, serum uric acid, serum creatinine, BUN, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and telomere length significantly differed between subjects with and without IHD (P < 0.05). Further, telomere length (P < 0.001), BMI (P < 0.001), and total cholesterol level (P < 0.001) were risk factors that significantly affected the incidence of IHD, as proved by logistic regression. It indicates that shorter telomeres contribute to increased risk of IHD, influenced by BMI, HbA1c, BUN, total cholesterol levels, and RBS (P < 0.001). The study established a link between telomere shortening, conventional risk factors, and IHD; moreover, the study takes care in the role of mediation analysis which is a novel idea as little is done in this area of biostatistics with telomere length. Overall, this further establishes that telomeres length might serve as the promising biomarkers in predicting the risk of IHD.

Correlation of the telomere length with type 2 diabetes mellitus in patients with ischemic heart disease.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to explore the relationship of the telomere length with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) among patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD). METHOD: This 2-year cross-sectional study included 130 male patients diagnosed with IHD through echocardiography and coronary angiography, wherein consecutive IHD patients with type 2 DM (65) and without type 2 DM (65) were selected. Baseline characteristics including age, gender, body mass index, and blood pressure were recorded. Laboratory investigations such as random blood sugar (RBS), fasting lipid profile, serum creatinine, and serum urea levels were measured. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used for the measurement of the telomere length. The logistic regression analysis was used to predict the relationship of the telomere length with age and type 2 DM among patients with IHD. RESULTS: All the patients in the study were men, and most of them (diabetics = 22; nondiabetics = 20) were aged between 56 and 65 years. Age (p = 0.003), telomere length (p < 0.001), RBS (p < 0.001), serum creatinine (p < 0013), and serum urea (p < 0.04) were significantly higher in the diabetic subset than in the nondiabetic subset. No significant relationship was observed between age and the telomere length (p = 0.813); however, the mean telomere length was significantly high among the patients with type 2 DM than those without type 2 DM (p = 0.005). The logistic regression analysis showed that the telomere shortening (p = 0.00019) and RBS (p < 0.0001) were the significant risk factors for type 2 DM in patients with IHD. CONCLUSION: The telomere shortening was significantly correlated with type 2 DM among the patients with IHD. However, multicentric studies with larger samples are required to validate the current observation.

CHA2DS2-VASc-HSF score - New predictor of severity of coronary artery disease in 2976 patients.

BACKGROUND: CHADS2 and CHA2DS2-VASc scores have been used for assessing prognostic risk of thromboembolism in non valvular atrial fibrillation patients. They include similar risk factors for the development of CAD To increase the likelihood of determining CAD severity, the CHA2DS2-VASc-HS and CHA2DS2-VASc-HSF score comprising of hyperlipidemia, smoking and family history respectively in addition to the components of the CHA2DS2-VASc score and male instead of female gender. The aim was to investigate whether these risk scores can be used to predict CAD severity. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 2976 consecutive patients who underwent coronary angiography were enrolled in the study. Presence of >50% stenosis in a coronary artery was assessed as significant CAD. Of the patients,804 had normal coronary angiograms and served as group 1. The remaining 2172 patients with coronary stenosis were further classified into 2 groups according to CAD with stenosis of <50% or >50%: 834 patients with mild CAD as group 2 and 1338 patients with severe CAD as group 3. The scores were significantly different among the 3 groups. All the four scores correlated significantly with the number of diseased and the Gensini score. CONCLUSION: CHADS2, CHA2DS2-VASc, and especially CHA2DS2-VASc-HS and CHA2DS2-VASc-HSF scores could be considered predictive of the risk of severe CAD with CHA2DS2-VASc-HSF the best scoring scheme to predict CAD severity. The risk scoring systems may play an important role as predictive models because they are simple and can be easily applied by physicians without any additional costs in routine practice.

Malignant Mediterranean spotted fever.

Fever with rash is one of the most common causes of referral to a dermatologist. A plethora of conditions need to be considered in the differential diagnosis. They may be broadly classified into infectious causes, drug reactions, and autoimmune disorders. Here we present a rare case of rickettsial fever with cardiac involvement in an elderly male patient with no comorbidities.

Prehypertension--a hidden risk of Indian subcontinent.

Prehypertension as an entity has been given Importance after JNC VII report. The magnitude of this problem in India and the importance of recognising prehypertension is slowly growing and getting established. Under these circumstances it was decided to study the prevalence of prehypertension in the city of Belgaum in Karnataka and the literature was reviewed. The objective of this study was to find out the prevalence of prehypertension in the urban population of Belgaum above thirty years of age. The urban population of Belgaum city was screened for prehypertension and hypertension by measuring blood pressure of all individuals aged 30 years and above. Blood pressure of 52196 persons was checked and the data was analysed. JNC VII criteria was used for defining hypertension, prehypertension and normal blood pressure. Among 52196 persons prehypertension was present in 41.1%, 67.1% were in the age group of 30-50 years. The prevalence was similar in both male and female population. Thirty-three percent of diabetic population had prehypertension. About 22.8% of prehypertensives were obese. Prehypertension is highly prevalent in urban population of India, more often seen in persons below 50 years of age. This study recognises the importance of detection of prehypertension and emphasises the need for mass education on life style modification to prevent the development of hypertension and its complications.

Percutaneous mitral balloon valvotomy in a case of situs inversus dextrocardia with severe rheumatic mitral stenosis.

The efficacy, safety and applicability of Inoue balloon technique for BMV are clearly established worldwide in selected subset of patients with rheumatic mitral stenosis (MS). However, in altered cardiac anatomy it offers technical challenges. Distorted cardiac anatomy and cardiac malpositions considerably increase the complications involved in interatrial septal puncture and left ventricular entry during BMV. There are only a few reports worldwide on successful BMV in altered cardiac anatomy using the standard Inoue technique. Here we describe a case of a 27-year-old female with situs inversus and dextrocardia, where BMV was successfully performed with a few modifications of the standard Inoue technique previously described in similar patients.

Successful treatment of double-orifice mitral stenosis with percutaneous balloon mitral commissurotomy.

Double-orifice mitral valve (DOMV) is an uncommon congenital anomaly, being present in 0.05% of the general population. The isolated occurrence of this anomaly is very rare and, to our knowledge, no data are currently available on the incidence of an isolated DOMV. A DOMV is characterized by a mitral valve with a single fibrous annulus with 2 orifices opening into the left ventricle (LV). Subvalvular structures, especially the tensor apparatus, invariably show various degrees of abnormality. It can substantially obstruct mitral valve inflow or cause mitral valve incompetence. We present a rare case of nineteen-year-old male who underwent percutaneous mitral balloon commissurotomy in stenotic DOMV.

Twin heart with a fused atria and separate ventricles in conjoined twins.

One of the most interesting congenital malformations is that of conjoined twins. We report echocardiographic features of twin heart in dicephalus, tribrachius, dispinous, thoracoomphalopagus twin. It showed two hearts fused at atrial level. Right-sided heart had single atrial chamber with a single ventricle. A single great vessel, aorta, originated from it. Left-sided heart was well developed with two atria and two ventricles. There was a small mid muscular ventricular septal defect and a small patent ductus arteriosus. Great arteries had normal origins.