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Aims: Albeit often asymptomatic, heart involvement in systemic sclerosis (SSc) represents a negative prognostic factor, accounting for nearly one-fourth of all deaths. Global longitudinal strain (GLS) is accurate in detecting heart involvement in patients with SSc and no overt cardiac disease and allows early detection and longitudinal monitoring, but its association with clinical endpoints has not been tested so far. The primary outcome was the association between left and right GLS and mortality for all causes. The secondary outcome was the association between left and right GLS and hospitalizations., Methods and Results: A prospective longitudinal study enrolling all consecutive patients with SSc without structural heart disease or previous cardiovascular event.A total of 164 patients were enrolled, of whom 19 (11.5%) died during follow-up and 48 (29.3%) were hospitalized. Both left (LV) and right ventricle (RV) GLS at enrolment were independently associated with an increased risk of death for all causes and hospitalizations. Patients with biventricular GLS impairment, respectively, had a 4.2-, 4.9-, and 13.9-fold increased risk of death when compared with patients with only LV, only RV, or no impairment ( P < 0.001). The incidence of hospitalization in patients with biventricular GLS impairment was nearly four times higher when compared with patients with only LV or only RV impairment, and nine times higher when compared with normal biventricular GLS ( P < 0.001)., Conclusion: Biventricular GLS is associated with an increased risk of death and hospitalization in patients with SSc during a median of 3-year follow-up, acting as a reliable and accurate prognostic tool in everyday practice., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest: none declared., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology.)

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent, debilitating, and costly psychiatric disorder. Evidenced-based psychotherapies, including Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), are effective in treating PTSD, although a fair proportion of individuals show limited benefit from such treatments. CPT requires cognitive demands such as encoding, recalling, and implementing new information, resulting in behavioral change that may improve PTSD symptoms. Individuals with PTSD show worse cognitive functioning than those without PTSD, particularly in acquisition of verbal memory. Therefore, memory dysfunction may limit treatment gains in CPT in some individuals with PTSD., Methods and Analysis: Here, we present a protocol describing the Cognition and PsychoTherapy in PTSD (CPTPTSD) study, a prospective, observational study examining how cognitive functioning affects treatment response in CPT for PTSD (NCT# 03641924). The study aims to recruit 105 outpatient veterans with PTSD between the ages of 18 and 70 years. Prior to beginning 12 sessions of CPT, Veteran participants will have standardized assessments of mood and functioning and complete a comprehensive neurocognitive battery assessing episodic learning, attention and speed of processing, language ability, executive control, and emotional functioning. This study aims to fill gaps in the current literature by: (1) examining the specificity of memory effects on treatment response; (2) exploring how baseline cognitive functioning impacts functional outcomes; and (3) examining potential mechanisms, such as memory for treatment content, that might explain the effects of baseline memory functioning on PTSD symptom trajectory., Discussion: If successful, this research could identify clinically relevant neurocognitive mechanisms that may impact PTSD psychotherapy and guide the development of individualized treatments for PTSD., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Cenkner, Asnaani, DiChiara, Harb, Lynch, Greene and Scott.)