Asthma is one of the most common clinical symptoms in Churg-Strauss syndrome (CSS). However, it is not known how lung function and bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR) prior to the development of CSS differs from asthmatics do not develop CSS. This retrospective cohort study was conducted to predict the onset of CSS and facilitate diagnosis in the early phase of the disease. We examined 24 pre-CSS asthmatic patients and 294 non-CSS asthmatic patients for clinical features, percent forced expiratory volume at 1 second (%FEV1), BHR to acetylcholine, and evaluated eosinophils (%) in the peripheral blood at their first hospital visit for asthma treatment. All of the 24 pre-CSS patients had adult-onset asthma. The asthma of 87.5% of pre-CSS patients at the first hospital visit before the onset of CSS was severe and was complicated by sinusitis. The eosinophils (%) in the peripheral blood was significantly higher than in non-CSS asthmatic patients. The %FEV1 in both the patients with severe asthma and the patients who developed CSS was lower than in patients with mild or moderate asthma. However, BHR in pre-CSS patients was significantly better than in non-CSS patients with severe asthma and was as mild as in patients with mild asthma. Patients who developed CSS had clinically severe asthma before the onset of CSS. The severity of their asthma was related to airflow limitation and eosinophilic inflammation in the peripheral blood, but not to BHR. These findings should prove useful in future early diagnosis and treatment of CSS.

Scanning with 36 views per head with CTAC may be appropriate for Tl-201 MPI using IQ-SPECT, because it provides images equivalent to those using conventional SPECT.

Fewer artificial defects were observed in the apex of images acquired by prone imaging than by S-CTAC imaging. Prone images improved attenuation and had similar defect decision as S-CTAC images in the anterior-anteroseptal, lateral, and inferior areas.

There were significant differences between uncorrected supine and prone NDBs, between uncorrected supine NDB and supine NDB with ACSC, and between uncorrected supine NDB and conventional SPECT NDB. Understanding the pattern of normal distribution in IQ-SPECT short-time acquisitions with and without ACSC will be helpful for interpretation of imaging findings in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) or low likelihood of CAD and the NDBs will aid in quantitative analysis.

Background:The characteristics and prognosis of implanted pacemaker-identified new-onset atrial fibrillation (AF) in Japanese people has not been well evaluated. Methods and Results:A total of 395 consecutive patients with newly implanted pacemakers were retrospectively analyzed between January 2010 and December 2015 at Yokohama City University Hospital. Patients with a prior history of AF, VVI mode pacemaker, congenital heart disease, severe valvular heart disease, and cardiovascular surgery before pacemaker implantation were excluded. Among the remaining patients, 44 (21.3%) developed new AF during follow-up (mean follow-up, 1,115±651 days; range, 9-2,176 days). Patients with new-onset AF had a significantly higher CHADS2 score (2.09±1.27 vs. 1.31±1.08, P<0.001) and CHA2DS2-VASc score (3.00±1.39 vs. 2.26±1.19, P<0.001) compared with those without new-onset AF. On Cox regression analysis only age at implantation was significantly correlated with new-onset AF. Interestingly, the incidence of hospitalization due to heart failure was significantly higher in the new-onset AF than in the without new-onset AF group.Conclusions: A total of 21.3% of pacemaker-implanted patients with high CHADS2 and CHA2DS2-VASc scores developed newonset AF during a mean follow-up of 3.1 years; and pacemaker-identified AF was associated with an increased risk of worsening heart failure.