Microwave Near-Field Dynamical Tomography of Thorax at Pulmonary and Cardiovascular Activity.

The developed near-field microwave diagnostics of dynamical lung tomography provide information about variations of air and blood content depth structure in the processes of breathing and heart beating that are unattainable for other available methods. The method of dynamical pulse 1D tomography (profiling) is based on solving the corresponding nonlinear ill-posed inverse problem in the extremely complicated case of the strongly absorbing frequency-dispersive layered medium with the dual regularization method-a new Lagrange approach in the theory of ill-posed problems. This method has been realized experimentally by data of bistatic measurements with two electrically small bow-tie antennas that provide a subwavelength resolution. The proposed methods of 3D lung tomography based on the multisensory pulse, multifrequency, or multi-base measurements are based on solving the corresponding integral equations in the Born approximation. The experimental 3D tomography of lung air content was obtained by the results of the multiple 1D pulse profiling by pulse measurements in several grid points over the planar square region of the thorax. Additionally, the possible applicability of multifrequency measurements of scattered harmonic signals in the monitoring of lungs was demonstrated by four-frequency measurements in the process of breathing. The results demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed control in the diagnosis of some lung diseases.

Oral geranylgeranylacetone treatment increases heat shock protein expression in human atrial tissue.

BACKGROUND: Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are important chaperones that regulate the maintenance of healthy protein quality control in the cell. Impairment of HSPs is associated with aging-related neurodegenerative and cardiac diseases. Geranylgeranylacetone (GGA) is a compound well known to increase HSPs through activation of heat shock factor-1 (HSF1). GGA increases HSPs in various tissues, but whether GGA can increase HSP expression in human heart tissue is unknown. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to test whether oral GGA treatment increases HSP expression in the atrial appendages of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. METHODS: HSPB1, HSPA1, HSPD1, HSPA5, HSF1, and phosphorylated HSF1 levels were measured by western blot analysis in right and left atrial appendages (RAAs and LAAs, respectively) collected from patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) who were treated with placebo (n = 13) or GGA 400 mg/da(n = 13) 3 days before surgery. Myofilament fractions were isolated from LAAs to determine the levels of HSPB1 and HSPA1 present in these fractions. RESULTS: GGA treatment significantly increased HSPB1 and HSPA1 expression levels in RAA and LAA compared to the placebo group, whereas HSF1, phosphorylated HSF1, HSPD1, and HSPA5 were unchanged. In addition, GGA treatment significantly enhanced HSPB1 levels at the myofilaments compared to placebo. CONCLUSION: Three days of GGA treatment is associated with higher HSPB1 and HSPA1 expression levels in RAA and LAA of patients undergoing CABG surgery and higher HSPB1 levels at the myofilaments. These findings pave the way to study the role of GGA as a protective compound against other cardiac diseases, including postoperative atrial fibrillation.

Advantages and disadvantages of one-stage and two-stage surgery for arrhythmias and Ebstein's anomaly.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate efficacy of one-step and two-step surgery approach in patients with arrhythmias combined with Ebstein's anomaly. METHODS: Fifty-three patients with Ebstein's anomaly combined with tachyarrhythmias (58.5% men, 41.5% women, mean age 21.6+/-10.7 years) were operated on. In group A (32 patients), one-step surgical correction (simultaneous intraoperative elimination of arrhythmias and congenital heart defect repair) was performed, whereas in group B (21 patients), two-step surgery was performed with initial elimination of arrhythmogenic substrate by transcatheter radiofrequency ablation (first step) and following surgical repair of congenital heart defect (second step). RESULTS: In group A, total hospital mortality was 3.1% (1 patient) due to initial severe condition of this patient. One-step surgery was effective in 93.5% of cases. Mortality was not observed in group B. Efficacy of transcatheter radiofrequency ablation was 76.2%. CONCLUSIONS: One-stage and two-stage surgery of arrhythmias and Ebstein's anomaly are highly effective. First step of surgery of combined pathology reduces cardiopulmonary bypass time, complications and mortality while performing the second step of congenital heart defect surgery. However, simultaneous approach (one-step surgery) is better in terms of arrhythmia elimination.