eLetters

887 e-Letters

  • Re:Physical Activity and Cardiorespiratory Fitness as Underappreciated Modulators of Obesity-Related Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death
    Selcuk Adabag
    We thank Laukkanen et al. for their interest in our recent report titled "Obesity related risk of sudden cardiac death in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study" (1). We agree that regular moderate physical activity reduces the risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) and all-cause mortality. Physical activity, but not fitness, was captured in the ARIC study via questionnaires. However, adjustment for this variable in our...
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  • Re:"Type 2" myocardial infarction: Evidence-based or guesswork diagnosis
    Tomasz Baron

    We would like to thank Dr Y-Hassan for his valuable comments [1] on our manuscript on type 2 myocardial infarction (AMI) [2]. As pointed out in our article we share Dr Y-Hassan?s criticism against the vague diagnostic criteria for type 2 AMI in the Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction [3,4] It may be difficult in many cases to distinguish type 2 AMI from type 1 AMI and other non-ischaemic conditions associated...

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  • Where are the Surgeons? A Safety Opportunity Missed
    Stephen Clark

    The introduction of a Patient Safety Checklist is a welcome addition for interventional cardiologists and is a concept practiced by surgeons in all disciplines for a number of years since the original WHO Patient Safety Checklist was proven to be of benefit in a global and multidisciplinary setting (1). The European Association for Cardiothoracic Surgery embraced this ideal in 2012 (1) with the publication of safety check...

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  • Effects of remote ischemic preconditioning on clinical outcomes after cardiac surgery
    Fu-Shan Xue

    In recent article of Candilio and colleagues assessing effect of remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) on postoperative outcomes in patients undergoing cardiac surgery, they showed that RIPC reduced amount of perioperative myocardial injury by 26% and incidence of acute kidney injury by 48%, respectively. They should be applauded for trying to control most of risk factors affecting postoperative myocardial and kidney in...

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  • The role of FFR in clinical practice
    Marco Araco

    Only recently the FAME-2 trial1 showed for the first time that, in patients with stable coronary artery disease (SCAD) and "significant" myocardial ischemia, there is a prognostic advantage of PCI over optimal medical therapy (OMT), and that this advantage is consistent in patients with either single or multi-vessel coronary artery disease. The clinical outcome of patients with coronary stenoses not associated with signi...

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  • WHEN THE RECOMMENDATION OF THE GUIDELINES ABOUT FRACTIONAL FLOW RESERVE WILL BE FOLLOWED?
    Inigo Lozano

    We have read with great interest the article written by Zhang et al[1] and we want to congratulate the authors on his contribution in this relevant issue. Since the first publication in 1995 by Pijls et al, fractional flow reserve has constantly progressed with undoubted success. After initially being validated as alternative to the non-invasive tests, the DEFER trial showed that a strategy of PCI based in FFR achieves b...

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  • Lower heart rate better in early AF
    Akshay k MEHTA

    Since the study shows a lower heart rate in paroxysmal or persistent AF is associated with lesser chance of progression to permanent AF, would rigorous treatment of heart rate with beta blockers in paroxysmal or persistent AF reduce the chance of their progression to permanent AF ?

    Conflict of Interest:

    None declared

  • Air pollution and cardiovascular disease
    Tomoyuki Kawada

    I read a paper by Xie et al. with interest (1). There is also a review article in the same issue by Chin on the mechanism on the relationship between air pollution and cardiovascular events (2), and expert position paper was also published (3). Xie et al. handled large samples in Beijing and conducted their survey with special emphasis on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration and ischaemic heart disease (IHD) mo...

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  • Re:Comment on: An epidemiological appraisal of the association between heart rate variability and particulate air pollution: a meta-analysis
    Tim S. Nawrot

    We thank Buteau and colleague (Buteau et al. 2014) for their interest in our meta-analysis on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and air pollution (Pieters et al. 2012). Their concern about combining studies from different types of regression models ignores the strength of our meta -analysis to combine all the available evidence on HRV and air pollution published before February 2012. Combining the available evidence is criti...

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  • Coffee brewing technique as a confounder in observational studies
    Christopher D Hingston

    Choi and colleagues describe an association between moderate coffee consumption and lower prevalence of subclinical coronary atherosclerosis [1]. This is consistent with a growing body of evidence that supports this finding. A similar large prospective study of over 400 000 participants, demonstrated that coffee consumption was inversley associated with both total and cause-specific mortality, specifically heart disease [...

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