Correction: Comprehensive survey of United States internet users' sentiments towards cryopreservation.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244980.].

Comprehensive survey of United States internet users' sentiments towards cryopreservation.

Medical cryopreservation is the speculative practice of using low temperatures and medical-grade cryoprotective agents to halt the decay of a recently-deceased person's brain and body for the prospect of future resuscitation and restoration of function. We conducted a survey of 1,487 internet users in the United States to measure familiarity with, interest in, beliefs about, and attitudes towards cryopreservation. The majority of respondents (75%) had previously heard of the topic. Respondents tended to underestimate the cost of cryopreservation and number of previous cases but overestimate the number of providers. While many respondents expressed interest in signing up (20%) or had actively researched the topic (21%), a much smaller fraction have decided to be cryopreserved (6%). This level of interest is much greater than the number of previous preservation cases would indicate. We found that respondents' attitudes towards death significantly correlated with their general sentiments towards the topic, with those expressing a desire for longer life or to see the future being more interested and positively inclined. Fear of death was not associated with interest in cryopreservation. Negative sentiments towards cryopreservation were less common than respondents perceived. For example, 14% of respondents believed that "most people" think cryopreservation should be illegal, but only 4% of respondents actually did. Many respondents (42%) were pessimistic regarding the likelihood of cryopreservation being successful, but the mean estimate of time until revival of cryopreserved bodies would be possible was 82 years.

Changes in contractile protein expression are linked to ventricular stiffness in infants with pulmonary hypertension or right ventricular hypertrophy due to congenital heart disease.

Background: The right ventricle (RV) is not designed to sustain high pressure leading to failure. There are no current medications to help RV contraction, so further information is required on adaption of the RV to such hypertension. Methods: The Right Ventricle in Children (RVENCH) study assessed infants with congenital heart disease undergoing cardiac surgery with hypertensive RV. Clinical and echocardiographic data were recorded, and samples of RV were taken from matched infants, analysed for proteomics and compared between pathologies and with clinical and echocardiographic outcome data. Results: Those with tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) were significantly more cyanosed than those with ventricular septal defect (median oxygen saturation 83% vs 98%, P=0.0038), had significantly stiffer RV (tricuspid E wave/A wave ratio 1.95 vs 0.84, P=0.009) and had most had restrictive physiology. Gene ontology in TOF, with enrichment analysis, demonstrated significant increase in proteins of contractile mechanisms and those of calmodulin, actin binding and others associated with contractility than inventricular septal defect. Structural proteins were also found to be higher in association with sarcomeric function: Z-disc, M-Band and thin-filament proteins. Remaining proteins associated with actin binding, calcium signalling and myocyte cytoskeletal development. Phosphopeptide enrichment led to higher levels of calcium signalling proteins in TOF. Conclusion: This is the first demonstration that those with an RV, which is stiff and hypertensive in TOF, have a range of altered proteins, often in calcium signalling pathways. Information about these alterations might guide treatment options both in terms of individualised therapy or inotropic support for the Right ventricle when hypertensive due to pulmoanry hypertension or congenital heart disease.

Prophylactic antibiotics in interventional paediatric cardiac catheterisation: old habits die hard?

Antibiotic prophylaxis in congenital cardiac disease has long been a topic of debate. Although there is little dispute around antibiotic cover for surgical procedures and catheter interventions where foreign material is being inserted, there are little data specific to non-device-placement procedures such as atrial septostomy or balloon valvotomy. We sought to assess the effect of routine prophylaxis on post-interventional infections via a retrospective pseudo-randomised analysis, and an online survey on paediatric interventional cardiologists in the United Kingdom and United States.

Underrecognition of elevated blood pressure readings in children after early repair of coarctation of the aorta.

Hypertension after repair of coarctation of the aorta (CoA) is the outcome variable most closely associated with adverse long-term events such as stroke and myocardial infarction. This study sought to evaluate the outpatient management of casual blood pressure (BP) measurements in young children after early repair of CoA. A retrospective analysis was performed of clinical findings, echocardiographic data, casual BP recordings, and subsequent BP management of 114 children with CoA repair aged 1-13 years during 338 outpatient visits managed at two congenital cardiac centers. Children with associated significant congenital heart disease or corrective surgery after the age of 6 months were excluded from the study. Blood pressure was documented at 233 clinic visits (69%), and systolic BP (SBP) was above 95th percentile for age and sex in 45 instances (19%). This represented an elevated SBP recording for 31 children (27%), with two or more successive elevated recordings for 11 children (10%). Of 12 subjects receiving antihypertensive medication, three had inadequate BP control. Blood pressure is not documented at approximately 30% of outpatient visits of children with repaired CoA. When elevated BP is documented, in all cases no recorded action was taken. This may have significant implications for cardiovascular outcomes in this cohort of patients.