A-Ghr is involved in cardiac function and has little effect on their physique in infants with CHD.

The outcome of stent implantation for pulmonary vein stenosis (PVS) in children remains poor. Several reports describe placing drug-eluting stents to treat PVS, but their effectiveness remains unknown. In this study, three bare-metal stents (BMSs) and three sirolimus-eluting stents (SESs) were implanted in 1-month-old pigs. The pigs were killed 8 weeks later to compare in-stent stenosis rates. The extent of neointimal thickness, as measured by injury score, was significantly less in the SES group than in the BMS group (injury score 1: BMS 0.351 + or - 0.033 vs SES 0.226 + or - 0.031 mm; P < 0.01; injury score 2: BMS 1.232 + or - 0.244 vs SES 0.609 + or - 0.208 mm; P < 0.01). The pathologic findings showed confluence of inflammatory cells around the stent wires in BMS-treated areas and granuloma formation. Granuloma formation was not seen with SES. The degree of in-stent stenosis was significantly reduced in the SES group, suggesting that the use of drug-eluting stents is an effective treatment for PVS. Because of the small sample size and the considerable variation in injury scores and balloon-to-vein ratios, future studies with larger samples are necessary.

No specific parameter that reflects the progress in liver fibrosis was identified in this study. The possibility exists that type IV collagen reflects the degree of hepatic congestion.

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Background: Studies have reported that heparin and exercise may alleviate myocardial ischemia in patients with Kawasaki disease (KD).Moreover, exercise alone can alleviate ischemic heart disease, e.g., cardiac rehabilitation in adult coronary disease. Exercise induces secretion of some growth factors and improves endothelial function. We found that exercise may play a role in physiologically increasing the diameter of the coronary artery(CA) in KD patients with history of coronary aneurysm. Clinical course: We report the case of a 9-year-old boy who had been admitted to our hospital at 6 months of age. He had long-term fever, rash, peripheral edema, conjunctivitis, and strawberry tongue and was diagnosed with KD. We treated him with a high dose of gamma globulin and pulse therapy. Despite these treatments, he developed coronary aneurysms on both sides. In the left descending artery (LAD), the aneurysmal diameter was 8 mm. We initiated treatment with warfarin and aspirin and performed angiography twice in the acute phase and at one year after admission, followed by magnetic resonance coronary angiography every 6 months. At 6 years of age, the aneurysmal changes disappeared. We stopped warfarin and started regular exercise on a weekly basis (1 hour of running and 2 hours of baseball). After initiation of exercise,echocardiography showed that LAD diameter increased from 2.8 mm to 3.5 mm. At 9 years of age, we performed angiography and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) to determine whether this increase in diameter was due to recurrent aneurysmal change or physiological change. The diameter of the LAD was 3.5 mm (>+2 SD of normal). IVUS showed that there was a small amount of endothelial hypertrophy but no irregularity, calcification, or thrombus. Thus, we concluded that this dilatation was not an inflammatory change but a physiological change. Conclusion: Regular exercise may play a role in improving CA lesions through arterial dilatation and improvement of endothelial function.