Trujillo Dodd (partymoon4)

BACKGROUND Current guidelines recommend direct-acting oral anticoagulants (DOACs) over warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and valvular heart disease (VHD) without a mechanical valve or moderate to severe mitral stenosis. However, real-world data to support the safety and efficacy of DOACs in this patient population are lacking. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to assess the safety and effectiveness of DOACs in patients with AF and VHD. METHODS This retrospective chart review evaluated patients aged ≥ 18 years with a diagnosis of AF and at least moderate VHD on echocardiogram. Patients were included if they received ≥ 1 month of DOAC therapy from December 2016 to December 2018. Patients were excluded if they received dual antiplatelet therapy or had additional indications for anticoagulation. The primary outcomes were incidence of stroke or systemic embolism (SSE) and major bleeding. RESULTS In total, 200 patients were included (disease type aortic, n = 50; mitral, n = 50; tricuspid, n = 50; multivaher studies are needed to validate these findings.PURPOSE This study aimed at determining the diagnostic implications of indirect signs of infection at FDG-PET-i.e., hypermetabolisms of the spleen and/or bone marrow (HSBM)-when documented in patients with known or suspected infective endocarditis (IE). METHODS HSBM were defined by higher mean standardized uptake values comparatively to that of the liver on FDG-PET images from patients with a high likelihood of IE and prospectively included in a multicenter study. RESULTS Among the 129 included patients, IE was ultimately deemed as definite in 88 cases. Lirametostat price HSBM was a predictor of definite IE (P = 0.014; odds ratio (OR) 3.2), independently of the criterion of an abnormal cardiac FDG uptake (P = 0.0007; OR 9.68), and a definite IE was documented in 97% (29/30) of patients showing both HSBM and abnormal cardiac uptake, 78% (7/9) of patients with only abnormal cardiac uptake, 67% (42/63) of patients with only HSBM, and 37% (10/27) of patients with neither one. CONCLUSION In this cohort with a high likelihood of IE, HSBM is an additional albeit indirect sign of IE, independently of the criterion of an abnormal cardiac uptake, and could reinforce the suspicion of IE in the absence of any other infectious, inflammatory, or malignant disease.2-deoxy-2- [18F] fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) PET is commonly used for the assessment of vessel wall inflammation. Guidelines for analysis of arterial wall FDG signal recommend the use of the average of maximal standardized uptake value (mean SUVmax) and target-to-blood (mean TBRmax) ratio. However, these methods have not been validated against a gold standard such as tissue activity ex vivo or net uptake rate of FDG (Ki) obtained using kinetic modeling. We sought to evaluate the accuracy of mean SUVmax and mean TBRmax for aortic wall FDG signal quantification in comparison with the net uptake rate of FDG. METHODS Dynamic PET data from 13 subjects without prior history of cardiovascular disease who enrolled in a study of vascular inflammation were used for this analysis. Ex vivo measurement of plasma activity was used as the input function and voxel-by-voxel Patlak analysis was performed with t* = 20 minute to obtain the Ki image. The FDG signal in the ascending aortic wall was quantified on PET images following recent guidelines for vascular imaging to determine mean SUVmax and mean TBRmax. RESULTS The Ki in the ascending aortic wall did not correlate with mean SUVmax (r = 0.10, P = NS), but correlated with mean TBRmax (r = 0.82, P less then 0.001) (Figure 1B). Ki and Ki_max strongly correlated (R = 0.96, P less then 0.0001) and similar to Ki, Ki_max did not correlate with mean SUVmax (r = 0.17, P = NS), but correlated with mean TBRmax (r = 0.83, P less then 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Kinetic modeling supports the use of mean TBRmax as a surrogate for the net uptake rate of FDG in the arterial wall. These results are rele