A 30-year-old woman was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in January 2006. One year later, she presented because of severe back pain and was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). In February 2008, the patient, while still under standard treatment for ulcerative colitis and AS, was admitted because of massive proteinuria and related symptoms. Nephrotic syndrome was observed and renal biopsy revealed amyloid deposits. After treatment with infliximab, nephrotic syndrome disappeared. We aim to present a case of secondary amyloidosis complicating ulcerative colitis and associated spondyloarthropathy.

QTcd independently predicted mortality, and it was significantly associated with coronary artery calcification, left ventricular hypertrophy and atherosclerosis in HD patients.

Hydatid cyst is a parasitic disease caused by Echinococcus granulosus. It is endemic in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Mediterranean region including Turkey. Cardiac involvement is rare. Surgery is the definitive treatment of cardiac hydatid cysts; however, to avoid recurrence after surgery, medical therapy should be also continued. Left ventricular free wall is the most common location, followed by the right ventricle and interventricular septum. Involvement of mitral valve is extremely rare. Herein, we present a case of hydatid cyst with myocardial involvement leading to severe mitral valve regurgitation which was successfully treated with surgery.

A b s t r a c tBackground: Fractional flow reserve (FFR) is an interventional diagnostic method, based on intracoronary pressure measurement, used for the assessment of the severity of coronary artery stenoses. Aim:Our study aimed to compare visual measurements made by multiple observers with FFR measurement in the assessment of angiographically moderate coronary artery stenosis. Methods:The angiographic images of moderate coronary artery lesions of 359 patients enrolled in the study were interpreted independently by three interventional cardiologists assigned as observers (O1, O2, O3). Results:In FFR, 37.9% were haemodynamically significant, while 62.1% were insignificant. 40.3% of the lesions were considered severe by O1, 39.9% by O2, and 44.4% by O3. When we compare the FFR results to the observers' decisions about lesion severity, the serious lesion percentages of all three observers were different both from each other and from the FFR result, at a statistically significant level (respectively, p < 0.001, p < 0.001). The kappa analysis performed to check the agreement between the observers' decisions and FFR revealed significant difference between FFR results and the decisions made by all observers (p < 0.001). The kappa agreement analysis performed by matching observers' decisions in pairs revealed a good agreement between O1 and O2 and a moderate agreement between O2 and O3 as well as O1 and O3, although there was still a significant disagreement between all pairs of observers (p < 0.001). Conclusions:Visual assessment, even when performed by experienced interventional cardiologists, does not yield similar results with FFR procedure in the process of determination of the functional importance of moderately severe coronary artery stenoses.

Our study revealed that QTc dispersion, Tpe and Tpe/QT ratio were greater in sarcoidosis patients compared to the control group. To our knowledge, the present study is the first to use Tpe interval analysis in patients without cardiac involvement in sarcoidosis. Tpe interval and Tpe/QT ratio may be promising markers for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality due to ventricular arrhythmias in patients with and without cardiac involvement in sarcoidosis.