No abstract

A 21-year-old. HIV negative, malnourished, homeless woman with congenital heart block had a pacemaker implanted at 7 years of age and multiple procedures thereafter. The most recent of these procedures was replacement of a pulse generator in the right pectoral region. Four months later she had fever, pain, and swelling over the implant site resulting from infection with mixed flora and Mycobacterium avium complex. The pacemaker system was removed by thoracotomy via a median sternotomy and a new DDD pacemaker simultaneously implanted. She was treated with systemic antibiotics--isoniazid, rifampin, ethambutol--for 2 weeks. Six months later she was healthy, pacing well, and apparently free of infection, off all medications.

A clear association has been established between cocaine use and acute myocardial infarction. Because of the continuing rise in cocaine use in the United States, many more young patients have or will have this disorder. Such patients are usually managed conservatively with calcium channel blockade and have an excellent in-hospital prognosis. If chest pain recurs or stress testing reveals evidence of ischemia, cardiac catheterization should be done. If cocaine use is discontinued, the long-term prognosis of a typical patient with cocaine-induced acute myocardial infarction is excellent in the absence of other chronic illnesses.

No abstract

The widely used CHADS2 score has been validated to predict the annual stroke risk (SR) in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF). The CHA2DS2-VASc score incorporates 5 more risk factors including female gender, age 65 to 74 years, and peripheral arterial disease (PAD), prior myocardial infarct or aortic plaque. The two schemes have different SR and require separate tables to calculate SR (Table 1) . Table 1 An acronym (AFIB)2S4 + PaF2 (Table 2) is presented to predict SR that increases with higher scores, simplifies memorization of the score, incorporates all known risk factors and more accurately predicts SR without the use of tables. Table 2 The SR per 100 patient-years is calculated by adding (AFIB)2S4 + PaF2 scores. For example if all are positive including age 75 years then the SR is 15%, while if all are negative, including age <65 and male gender, then the SR is 0. To determine the predictive accuracy of the three scores, we reviewed the records of 100 consecutive patients admitted with acute cerebrovascular events and AF. The results showed 83% would have been classified as moderate to high risk (score>1) by CHADS2 , 95% by CHA2DS2-VASc , and 99% by (AFIB)2S4 + PaF2. (P <0.012). Conclusion: Compared to the CHADS2 , and CHA2DS2-VASc , (AFIB)2S4 + PaF2 more accurately predicts risk of acute cerebrovascular events in patients with AF. It is easy to remember and does not require the use of tables to assess SR in AF. Further studies are needed for validation. PEN ©