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The mortality in patients with cardiogenic shock after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) remains high despite advances in resuscitation and early revascularization strategies. The use of mild therapeutic hypothermia (MTH) for improvement of survival and neurological outcome in patients with cardiogenic shock is currently subject to renewed discussion. The aim of this study was the detection of risk factors for mortality and morbidity in patients under MTH in cardiogenic shock following preclinical resuscitation for OHCA. A total of 80 consecutive patients in cardiogenic shock after successful resuscitation (mean age 60 +/- 3.2 years) treated with MTH were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were cooled to 33 A degrees C for 24 h using an endovascular cooling device. Neurological outcome was assessed after 2 months based on the Glasgow-Pittsburgh cerebral performance category (CPC) and correlated with various blood parameter values. After 2 months 31 patients (39 %) showed a good neurological recovery with CPC scores of 1-2, 20 patients (25 %) had a poor neurological outcome with CPC scores of 3-4 and 29 (36 %) patients enrolled in the trial died (CPC 5). Patients with a poor outcome showed significantly higher mean serum levels for lactate, creatinine and urea. In addition, these patients showed a continuous increase of serum neuron-specific enolase (NSE) values in contrast to patients with a good outcome (a dagger NSE from admission to day 1, CPC 1 and 2: - 10.6 +/- 3 A mu g/l and CPC 3-5: 33 +/- 12 A mu g/l, p = 0.02). Changes in the course of serum creatinine, urea and NSE levels within the first 72 h after OHCA could provide valuable additional information for the early assessment of the neurological prognosis in patients treated with MTH.

Circulatory insufficiency is often understood as symptomatic hypotension due to various causes. The clinical result of circulatory dysregulation is arterial hypotension. The manifestation of hypotension is often divided into chronic and acute forms. Chronic hypotension can be distinguished etiopathogenetically into primary and secondary hypotension. Acute hypotension is usually equated to circulatory shock. While patients with chronic hypotension should be seen primarily by their general practitioner, patients with acute hypotension and a frequently severe clinical manifestation should be evaluated in the emergency department or, if there is a specific cause, directly in the acute clinic. Standardization of diagnostic and therapeutic pathways in both out- and inpatient care-not only for the management of circulatory weakness-would be an improvement not only in regards to patient care, but also with respect to healthcare economics.

Tricuspid valve regurgitation is frequently found as a result of right ventricular remodeling due to advanced left heart diseases. Drug treatment is limited to diuretics and the cardiac or pulmonary comorbidities. Due to the high risk only a small percentage of patients are amenable to surgical treatment of tricuspid regurgitation in those who undergo left-sided surgery for other reasons. Catheter-based procedures are an attractive treatment alternative, particularly since the strong prognostic impact of tricuspid regurgitation suggests an unmet need of treatment, independent of the underlying heart disease. A vast amount of clinical experience exists for the MitraClip system for treatment of mitral regurgitation. A first case series shows that the application for treatment of tricuspid regurgitation is technically feasible, seems to be safe and the degree of valve regurgitation can be reduced. In this review the background of tricuspid regurgitation treatment is summarized and first experiences and perspectives with the MitraClip system are assessed.

The so-called point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is of increasing importance for diagnostics and therapy control in intensive care medicine. Based on focused thorax sonography, echocardiography, and abdominal sonography, the most important working and differential diagnoses can be demonstrated or excluded depending on the leading symptom. Sonographic-based algorithms allow a structured evaluation especially of patients with the common leading symptoms dyspnea and thoracic pain.

We present a case of a 34-year-old woman with cardiogenic shock after successful resuscitation. In the medical history migraine was known. Emergency echocardiography demonstrated left ventricular dysfunction with hypokinetic basal and midventricular segments and hyperkinetic apex. Cerebral computed tomography suggested a massive subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) with transtentorial herniation, so that taking into account the clinical history (severe headache) the diagnosis of a SAH-associated inverted takotsubo cardiomyopathy could be made. In the case of subarachnoid haemorrhage it should be noted that extracerebral organ dysfunction, e.g. inverted takotsubo cardiomyopathy, frequently occurs.

Long QT syndrome (LQTS) can lead to ventricular arrhythmia, especially torsade de pointes (TdP) tachycardia and/or ventricular tachycardia (VT). The aim of this study is to characterize patients with life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias associated with drug-induced LQTS and to identify risk factors of distinct presenting arrhythmias. In this retrospective study, we present 33 consecutive cases of life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias associated with drug-induced long QT, which were direct admitted as emergency to a medical intensive care unit (MICU) during an observational time of 6 years. Of 33 identified cases, 55 % presented with TdP with the need of resuscitation and 45 % showed nonsustained VT, respectively. In the total cohort the mean corrected QT interval (QT(c)) was 532 +/- 29 ms, with 530 +/- 31 ms (n = 14) in men and 533 +/- 28 ms (n = 19) in women (p = 0.80), respectively. Cardiac drugs with QT(c) interval prolonging effect were reported in 24 % of cases, and the other 76 % involved noncardiac medications. Although hypokalemia is the most common risk factor for drug-induced malignant arrhythmias, a QT(c) interval of at least 500 ms seems to be the major determinant of the risk of drug-induced proarrhythmias. Interestingly, patients with TdP exhibit more bradycardia as such with VT. This is the first study of patients with drug-induced life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias who were admitted as a case of emergency to a MICU. Physicians should be aware of drug-induced LQTS and be able to identify patients at risk and avoid specific drugs in such patients.

Background: We aimed to examine the association between chocolate intake and the risk of incident heart failure in a UK general population. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to quantify this association. Methods and results: We used data from a prospective population-based study, the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (EPIC)-Norfolk cohort. Chocolate intake was quantified based on a food frequency questionnaire obtained at baseline (1993-1997) and incident heart failure was ascertained up to March 2009. We supplemented the primary data with a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies which evaluated risk of incident heart failure with chocolate consumption. A total of 20,922 participants (53% women; mean age 58 +/- 9 years) were included of whom 1101 developed heart failure during the follow up (mean 12.5 +/- 2.7 years, total person years 262,291 years). After adjusting for lifestyle and dietary factors, we found 19% relative reduction in heart failure incidence in the top (up to 100 g/d) compared to the bottom quintile of chocolate consumption (HR 0.81 95%CI 0.66-0.98) but the results were no longer significant after controlling for comorbidities (HR 0.87 95%CI 0.71-1.06). Additional adjustment for potential mediators did not attenuate the results further. We identified five relevant studies including the current study (N = 75,408). The pooled results showed non-significant 19% relative risk reduction of heart failure incidence with higher chocolate consumption (HR 0.81 95%CI 0.66-1.01). Conclusions: Our results suggest that higher chocolate intake is not associated with subsequent incident heart failure. (C) 2016 The Italian Society of Diabetology, the Italian Society for the Study of Atherosclerosis, the Italian Society of Human Nutrition, and the Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, Federico II University. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hemodynamic monitoring is required in critically ill patients presenting with circulatory shock. Besides the clinical evaluation, noninvasive technologies can be used. Guidelines on volume resuscitation and cardiogenic shock already recommend bedside ultrasound as a diagnostic tool. To differentiate the cause of circulatory shock and monitor the effects of therapies, hemodynamic monitoring is necessary. This review discusses possibilities of the different invasive and noninvasive monitoring tools with a focus on the integration of clinical and sonographic parameters.

Controversy still exists regarding inpatient monitoring of patients exposed to electrical injuries. In a monocentric retrospective study, we evaluated the medical records of 169 patients admitted to the University Hospital of Cologne from January 2000 to January 2014 because of electrical trauma. The electrocardiogram (ECG) data of 40 patients were missing. Patients in our collective were predominantly young men (60 %) with an average age of 17.5 +/- 17 years (1 year to 73 years). The electrical trauma occurred occupational (20 %), domestic (65 %), and during leisure time (15 %). In the high-voltage (aeyen 1000 V) group (n = 7; 71 % male; 40.0 +/- 19.4 years) one death was reported, related to an open intracranial injury and cardiac arrest. Of the six surviving patients five showed normal ECGs and one a sinus tachycardia. In the low-voltage (< 1000 V) group (n = 162, 56 % male; 5.0 +/- 4.3 years) the ECG findings were as follows: 104 normal, 5 sinus tachycardia, 3 sinus arrhythmia, 6 ST segment changes, 3 premature atrial contraction, 1 premature ventricular contraction, 1 atrio-ventricular (AV)-Block and 1 delta wave. In all, one patient showed a self-limiting supraventricular tachycardia. Asymptomatic and stable patients without any risk factors and with a normal initial ECG need no inpatient cardiac monitoring after an electrical injury.