View clinical trials related to Apical Ballooning Syndrome.
Filter by:The investigators' hypothesis is that patients with apical ballooning syndrome (ABS) will manifest a personality profile that differs than that of a population of similar range of ethnic and socioeconomic status.
Stress (tako-tsubo) cardiomyopathy (SC) is a rapidly reversible form of acute heart failure reported to be triggered by stressful events and associated with a distinctive left ventricular (LV) contraction pattern. SC mimics acute coronary syndrome and is accompanied by reversible left ventricular apical ballooning in the absence of angiographically significant coronary artery stenosis. sympathetic activity dysfunction appears to play a very important role in the pathophysiology of takotsubo cardiomyopathy. In most cases, myocardial scintillography with 123Imetaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) showed altered captation of the radiotracer in several heart segments. In particular, the apical myocardium has poor sympathetic innervations and an uptake reduction in MIBG tracer. A hypothesis for this finding could be that the intense discharge of adrenalin, acting on heart segment with different and abnormal innervation, may produce a transient heart failure characterized by a particular shape of the left ventricle. While studies have shown that heterogeneous MIBG distribution, decreased MIBG uptake and increased norepinephrine content were completely prevented by α-lipoic acid or by L-acetyl carnitine administrations in diabetic cardiomyopathy, no studies have examined the effects of these therapies on tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy. On this basis, the investigators study will evaluate whether the dysfunction of adrenergic cardiac innervation, evaluated by MIBG, persist after previous experience of transient stress-induced cardiac dysfunction. Moreover, the investigators will assess whether the medications that restore sympatho-vagal alterations in diabetic cardiomyopathy, such as α-lipoic acid and L-acetyl carnitine, will improve the adrenergic cardiac innervation, in patients with SC.
The aim of this study is to measure how different people respond to mental stress. The investigators will measure if there are differences in cardiovascular responses to mental stress among different groups of subjects. In one part of the study the investigators will compare the cardiovascular responses to mental stress between healthy women and healthy men. In another part of the study, the investigators will compare the cardiovascular responses to mental stress between women with apical ballooning syndrome and healthy post-menopausal women. The investigators hypothesize that healthy men will have an increased vascular response to and decreased endothelial function in response to to mental stress, compared to health women. Furthermore, the investigators hypothesize that women with apical ballooning syndrome will have an increased vascular response to and decreased endothelial function in response to mental stress.
Our hypothesis is that altered cardiac sympathetic activity is present and may contribute to the myocardial stunning observed in the apical ballooning syndrome. Aim: Assess the extent and reversibility of cardiac adrenergic neuronal dysfunction using carbon-11 hydroxyephedrine (C-11 HED), a positron emission tomography (PET) tracer, in patients with the apical ballooning syndrome.