No abstract

Background-The measurement of serum concentrations of cardiac troponin T (TnT) is a simple, useful method to detect myocyte injury that may be repeated multiple times to follow patients without interobserver variability. Methods and Results-Multiple measurements of TnT with a second-generation assay were performed in 60 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy confirmed by coronary angiography and endomyocardial biopsy between April 1996 and December 1999. Three evolutionary patterns of TnT concentrations were identified. Thirty-three patients had concentrations of TnT Ͻ0.02 ng/mL throughout the follow-up period (group 1). The remaining 27 patients had high initial serum concentrations of TnT (Ն0.02 ng/mL). In 10 of these 27 patients, TnT decreased to Ͻ0.02 ng/mL during follow-up (group 2), whereas 17 had persistently high serum TnT concentrations despite being conventionally treated for chronic congestive heart failure (group 3). Although the initial echocardiographic left ventricular diastolic dimension (LVDd) and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) were not significantly different among the 3 groups, follow-up echocardiography showed significantly decreased LVDd and increased LVEF in group 1 (each PϽ0.01) and group 2 (each PϽ0.05) compared with increased LVDd and decreased LVEF in group 3 (each PϽ0.05). The cardiac event-free rate was significantly lower in group 3 than in groups 1 and 2 (each PϽ0.001), and the survival rate was lower in group 3 than in group 1 (PϽ0.05). Conclusions-Persistently increased

Background: Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) improves health-related quality of life and exercise capacity in patients with heart failure (HF). However, CR efficacy in patients with HF who are elderly, frail, or have HF with preserved ejection fraction remains unclear. We examined whether participation in multidisciplinary outpatient CR is associated with long-term survival and rehospitalization in patients with HF, with subgroup analysis by age, sex, comorbidities, frailty, and HF with preserved ejection fraction. Methods: This multicenter retrospective cohort study was performed in patients hospitalized for acute HF at 15 hospitals in Japan, 2007 to 2016. The primary outcome (composite of all-cause mortality and HF rehospitalization after discharge) and secondary outcomes (all-cause mortality and HF rehospitalization) were analyzed in outpatient CR program participants versus nonparticipants. Results: Of the 3277 patients, 26% (862) participated in outpatient CR. After propensity matching for potential confounders, 1592 patients were included (n=796 pairs), of which 511 had composite outcomes (223 [14%] all-cause deaths and 392 [25%] HF rehospitalizations, median 2.4-year follow-up). Hazard ratios associated with CR participation were 0.77 (95% CI, 0.65–0.92) for composite outcome, 0.67 (95% CI, 0.51–0.87) for all-cause mortality, and 0.82 (95% CI, 0.67–0.99) for HF-related rehospitalization. CR participation was also associated with numerically lower rates of composite outcome in patients with HF with preserved ejection fraction or frail patients. Conclusions: Outpatient CR participation was associated with substantial prognostic benefit in a large HF cohort regardless of age, sex, comorbidities, frailty, and HF with preserved ejection fraction.

The severity of postresuscitation myocardial dysfunction is related, at least in part, to the magnitude of the electrical energy of the delivered shock.