METHODS: We identified all of our endomyocardial biopsyproven cardiac amyloidosis patients from January 2010 to January 2018 and reviewed their medical records. All patients echocardiographic and ECG findings reviewed and analysed comparing to basic mean population value.
RESULTS: In total there are 13 biopsy-proven cardiac amyloidosis patients. All of the biopsies shows light chain (AL) amyloid. Majority of the patients (8, 61.5%) is male, and most of our patients (8, 61.5%) is Chinese. All seven patients on whom we performed deformation imaging have apical sparing pattern on longitudinal strain echocardiogram. Mean ejection fraction is 49.3%, (SD=7.9). All patients have concentric left ventricular hypertrophy and right ventricular hypertrophy. Diastolic dysfunction was present in all of our patients with nine out of 13 patients (69.2%) having restrictive filling patterns (E/A ≥2.0 E/e' ≥15). On electrocardiogram, 12 (92%) patients have prolonged PR interval (median 200ms, IQR 76.50ms) and 9 (69.2%) patients have pseudoinfarct pattern.
CONCLUSION: Echocardiography plays an important role in diagnosing cardiac amyloidosis. The findings of concentric left ventricular hypertrophy with preserved ejection fraction without increased in loading condition should alert the clinician towards its possibility. This is further supported by right ventricular hypertrophy and particularly longitudinal strain imaging showing apical sparing pattern.
METHODS: We enrolled 75 hypertensive patients with CKD into one-month salt restricting diet. 24-hour urinary sodium and potassium was measured to verify their salt intake followed by 1½ year follow-up.
RESULTS: Their creatinine clearance was 43 ± standard deviation 33ml/min/1.73m2. Urinary Na excretion (24HUNa) was 173±129mmol/day, reducing to 148±81 by 31±6 day. Mean, systolic and diastolic BP (MBP, SBP, DBP) were reduced from 102±9 to 97±11 (p<0.001), 148±10 to 139±16 (p<0.001), 78±12 to 75±12 mmHg (p=0.012) respectively. Moderate correlations were shown between reductions in 24-hour urinary Na and MBP, SBP, DBP: r=0.366, 0.260, 0.365; p=0.001, 0.025, 0.001; whereas 24-hour urinary Na-K ratio showed mild correlation. Subjects have some tendency to drift back to previous Na intake profile in follow-up and thus repetitive education is necessary. In subanalysis, 34 subjects with baseline 24HUNa >150 mmol/day, benefited significantly with MBP, SBP, DBP reduction from 102±9 to 95±9 (p=0.001), 146±10 to 135±14 mmHg (p=0.001), 80±11 to 75±11 mmHg (p=0.002) in line with 24HUNa reduction from 253±154 to 163±87mmol/day (p=0.004) and urinary protein-creation ratio reduction from geometric mean of 95 to 65 g/mol. Thirty five subjects with 24HUNa reduction of >20mmol/day have significant reduction in MBP, SBP, DBP: -8 vs -2, -15 vs -4, -5 vs -2 mmHg (p=0.027, 0.006, 0.218) and urinary protein-creatinine ratio: -82 vs 2g/mol (p=0.030) compared to the other forty subjects.
CONCLUSION: Quantification of 24-hour urinary Na helps in predicting potential antihypertensive effect with dietary salt reduction of CKD subjects. Salt restriction reduces BP especially in patients with estimated daily sodium intake of >150mmol/day. Reduction in sodium intake beyond 20mmol/day reduced both BP and proteinuria.
METHOD: This is a retrospective study of all the patients that had undergone endoscopic variceal surveillance at the Gastroenterology endoscopy unit, Serdang Hospital from 1st January 2015 to 31st March 2017. Patients' demography, aetiologies of liver cirrhosis, platelet level and international normalised ratio (INR) prior banding procedure, and the post EVL complications were recorded and further analysed with SPSS version 16.
RESULTS: In this study, 105 patients were screened for varices. Fifty-five of them had undergone EVL, with a quarter of the patients requiring repeated ligation. There was a male preponderance with 76.4%. 56.4% of patients were in age from 40-59 years. The majority of our patients were of the Malay ethnicity. The major aetiology for liver cirrhosis in our patients was viral hepatitis with Hepatitis C (31.0%), and Hepatitis B (20.0%). Most of our patients had platelet count >50,000 and INR <1.5 prior to EVL. There was no major complication in all of our subjects.
CONCLUSION: EVL is relatively safe and feasible treatment for prevention of oesophageal variceal bleeds with a low complication rate.
METHODS: Speech-and-noise signals were presented to, and recorded from, six hearing aids mounted on a head and torso simulator. Test stimuli were nonsense words mixed with pink, cafeteria, or speech-modulated noise at 0 dB SNR. Fricatives /s, z/ were extracted from the recordings for analysis.
RESULTS: Analysis of the noise confirmed that MBNR in all hearing aids was activated for the recordings. More than 1.0 dB of acoustic change occurred to /s, z/ when MBNR was turned on in four out of the six hearing aids in the pink and cafeteria noise conditions. The acoustics of /s, z/ by female talkers were affected more than male talkers. Significant relationships between amount of noise reduction and acoustic change of /s, z/ were found. Amount of noise reduction accounts for 42.8% and 16.8% of the variability in acoustic change for /s/ and /z/ respectively.
CONCLUSION: Some clinically-available implementations of MBNR have measurable effects on the acoustics of fricatives. Possible implications for speech perception are discussed.