Data On Heart Failure
Data on markers for heart failure among study patients were obtained from the counties hospital discharge registries. Heart failure was defined as a previous hospital discharge diagnosis or outpatient diagnosis of congestive heart failure pulmonary edema left ventricular failure unspecified heart failure cardiomyopathy or hypertensive heart disease with congestive heart failure . We considered diagnoses recorded within five years preceding the date of hospitalization for pneumonia . We further disaggregated patients with heart failure into five categories of heart failure-related conditions: 1) cardiomyopathy 2) heart valve disease 3) myocardial infarction , 4) atrial fibrillation only 5) none of the above diagnoses.
Outcomes Of Pneumonia In Patients With Heart Failure
- Shen L, Jhund PS, Anand IS, et al.
- Citation:
- Supriya Shore, MD
Quick Takes
- In post hoc analyses of two large, randomized cohorts with HFrEF and HFpEF patients, incidence of pneumonia was 29 and 39 per 1,000 patient-years, respectively.
- Patients with pneumonia in both cohorts were older with more comorbid conditions.
- Pneumonia was associated with an increased risk of two- to four-fold for HF hospitalization, all-cause mortality, and cardiovascular mortality in both HFrEF and HFpEF patients.
How’s An Enlarged Heart Diagnosed
A diagnosis starts with discussing your symptoms and family health history. Your healthcare provider may order tests to assess the cardiomegaly and rule out other conditions. Some common tests include:
- Chest X-ray to record images of the chest and heart.
- CT scan, using X-rays to create a video of your heart and blood flow.
- Echocardiogram to evaluate and create an image of your heartbeat and blood flow.
- Electrocardiogram to study your hearts electrical activity. Exercise stress test, raising your heart rate with medicine or exercise to learn how your heart responds.
- MRI, using magnets and radio waves to create detailed pictures of your heart.
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Data On Hospitalizations For Pneumonia
We identified patients aged at least 15 years of age, with a first-time hospitalization for pneumonia during the three data collection periods, using counties hospital discharge registries merged into a research database, as previously described . The registries contain key information on all patient discharges from non-psychiatric hospitals in the counties since 1977 . Data include patients civil registration numbers, admission and discharge dates, and up to 20 discharge diagnoses coded exclusively by physicians according to the International Classification of Diseases . The ICD-10 codes used for pneumonia hospitalizations were J12-J18, A481, and A709.
What Do The Numbers Mean
Ejection Fraction 55% to 70%
- Pumping Ability of the Heart: Normal.
- Level of Heart Failure/Effect on Pumping: Heart function may be normal or you may have heart failure with preserved EF .
Ejection Fraction 40% to 54%
- Pumping Ability of the Heart: Slightly below normal.
- Level of Heart Failure/Effect on Pumping: Less blood is available so less blood is ejected from the ventricles. There is a lower-than-normal amount of oxygen-rich blood available to the rest of the body. You may not have symptoms.
Ejection Fraction 35% to 39%
- Pumping Ability of the Heart: Moderately below normal.
- Level of Heart Failure/Effect on Pumping: Mild heart failure with reduced EF .
Ejection Fraction Less than 35%
- Pumping Ability of the Heart: Severely below normal.
- Level of Heart Failure/Effect on Pumping: Moderate-to-severe HF-rEF. Severe HF-rEF increases risk of life-threatening heartbeats and cardiac dyssynchrony/desynchronization .
Normal Heart. A normal left ventricular ejection fraction ranges from 55% to 70%. An LVEF of 65%, for example means that 65% of total amount of blood in the left ventricle is pumped out with each heartbeat. Your EF can go up and down, based on your heart condition and how well your treatment works.
HF-pEF. If you have HF-pEF, your EF is in the normal range because your left ventricle is still pumping properly. Your doctor will measure your EF and may check your heart valves and muscle stiffness to see how severe your heart failure is.
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Using Thoracic Radiographs To Differentiate Pulmonary And Cardiac Diseases In Dogs And Cats
There are several reasons we take thoracic radiographs. These include a noted heart murmur, screening for metastatic disease, evaluating for clinical problems such as a fever of unknown origin or most commonly, for the evaluation of a patient coughing or having respiratory distress. In this article, we will review lung patterns and distributions of common pulmonary diseases while putting the clinical picture together.
Causes Of An Enlarged Heart
Your heart can enlarge because of a condition youre born with called a congenital condition or a heart problem that develops over time.
Any disease that makes your heart work harder to pump blood through your body can cause an enlarged heart. Just as the muscles of your arms and legs get bigger when you work them, your heart gets bigger when it works harder. Increased pressures in the heart can also cause chamber dilation.
The most common causes of an enlarged heart are ischemic heart disease and high blood pressure.
Ischemic heart disease occurs when narrowed arteries, caused by fatty deposits that build up in your arteries, prevent blood from getting to your heart.
Other conditions that can make your heart enlarge include:
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If You’re Over 65 Be Sure To Follow The Latest Pneumonia Vaccine Guidelines
Each year, about a million people in the United States end up in the hospital with pneumonia, a serious lung infection that can be caused by an array of different viruses, bacteria, and even fungi. New research suggests that older people hospitalized with pneumonia face four times their usual risk of a having a heart attack or stroke or dying of heart disease in the month following the illness.
The risk declines over the following year, according to the report, published in the Jan. 20, 2015, Journal of the American Medical Association. Infections put added stress on your heart, forcing it to work harder. Your body’s efforts to fight the infection also trigger unhealthy changes inside your arteries, such as releasing chemicals that can make blood more likely to clot, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke.
“Serious infections like pneumonia are linked to a higher risk of heart attack as well as worsening heart failure in people with that condition,” says Dr. Scott Solomon, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. For older people, the pneumonia vaccine may help prevent these dangerous complications, but an annual flu shot is also important, he notes. The same virus that causes the flu can also cause viral pneumonia in some people and nudge others to develop bacterial pneumonia.
Causes Of Temporary Mild Cardiomegaly
Medical treatment may be necessary in some cases, and the causes of temporary cardiomegaly can include:
- Excessive alcohol intake or drug use: Substance abuse can cause a form of mild cardiomegaly. Treatment will help reverse this condition.
- Extreme stress: Stress can lead to acute stress-induced cardiomyopathy. Approximately 75 percent of people with the condition have undergone emotional or physical stress.
- Pregnancy: The heart can sometimes become larger around the time of delivery. This type of cardiomegaly may be called peripartum cardiomyopathy.
- Viral infection of the heart: Antiviral medications may be required to treat viral infections of the heart that cause cardiomegaly.
Some people are more at risk than others of developing mild cardiomegaly. Factors that can increase risk include:
- alcohol or drug abuse
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Veterinary Internal Medicine In Huntersville
At Carolina Veterinary Specialists in Huntersville, our veterinary internal medicine specialists are experienced in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the immune, cardiovascular, pulmonary, urinary, gastrointestinal, and endocrine systems in a compassionate and gentle way. If your dog has been diagnosed with pulmonary edema speak to your vet about a referral to our internal medicine specialists to provide your dog with advanced diagnosis and treatment.
Note:The advice provided in this post is intended for informational purposes and does not constitute medical advice regarding pets. For an accurate diagnosis of your pet’s condition, please make an appointment with your vet.
What Dcm Does To A Dogs Heart And Lungs
In most cases of DCM in dogs, the ventricles become enlarged, though some cases also involve enlargement of the atria .
With DCM, the muscle wall of the heart becomes thinner, causing it to lose the ability to pump blood to the rest of the body.
As a result, fluid can accumulate in certain tissues, including the lungs.
If left untreated, the compromised heart muscle eventually becomes overwhelmed by the increased fluid volume, resulting in congestive heart failure .
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Pathophysiology Of Hypoxia And Ph
Respiratory failure secondary to hypoxia is usually a result of two main mechanisms. The first one being that during inflammation, the alveoli are filled with inflammatory exudate. The inflammatory exudate reduces the available surface area of the alveoli that are used in gas exchange . The second mechanism is through V/Q mismatch . The V/Q ratio is the amount of air reaching the alveoli per minute to the amount of blood reaching the alveoli from the capillaries per minute. Perfusion within the lung is affected by subatmospheric intrapleural pressure and gravity as a result, perfusion is higher at the lower lobes than at the peak of the lungs. These differences have a significant impact on the V/Q ratio-the V/Q ratio is higher on the apex of the lung than on the base of the lung . If the lung is taken as a whole, the mean V/Q ratio is around 0.8. During the acute phase of pneumonia, the pulmonary vascular system continues to maintain blood flow to the affected regions of the lung, and this causes an intrapulmonary shunt . In such cases, if there is a low V/Q ratio, it causes a decrease in the PAO2 which later causes a decrease in the PaO2 causing hypoxemia.
Bacteremia And Septic Shock
If bacteria caused your pneumonia, they could get into your blood, especially if you didn’t see a doctor for treatment. It’s a problem called bacteremia.
Bacteremia can lead to a serious situation known as . It’s a reaction to the infection in your blood, and it can cause your blood pressure to drop to a dangerous level.
When your blood pressure is too low, your heart may not be able to pump enough blood to your organs, and they can stop working. Get medical help right away if you notice symptoms like:
Your doctor can test your mucus or the pus in your lungs to look for infection. They may also take an X-ray or a CT scan of your lungs.
Your doctor will likely treat your lung abscesses with antibiotics. They may do a procedure that uses a needle to remove the pus.
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What Is Congestive Heart Failure
Congestive heart failure is a term that refers to the heart’s inability to pump adequate blood to the body. There are many causes of CHF in dogs. The two most common causes are:
- mitral valve insufficiency . MVI is a leaky mitral valve, which is the valve between the left atrium and the left ventricle.
- dilated cardiomyopathy .
For further information on these specific causes, please see the handouts “Dilated Cardiomyopathy in Dogs” and “Mitral Valve Disease in Dogs”.
Clinical signs of CHF vary depending on whether the dog has left- or right-sided heart failure.
Data On Potential Confounding Factors
We obtained data on comorbidity and other covariates from the hospital and prescription databases. For each study subject, we collected data on different major disease categories as included in the Charlson comorbidity index , based on the complete hospital discharge history before the pneumonia hospitalization and, for diabetes, also based on data on prescriptions for insulin/antidiabetic drugs. We defined three comorbidity levels as low , medium , and high . We also collected hospital discharge data on previous alcoholism-related disorders not included in the Charlson index. From the prescription databases, we furthermore retrieved data on prescriptions for immunosuppressive drugs, including corticosteroids prescribed within one year, and systemic antibiotics prescribed within 6 months prior to the hospitalization with pneumonia.
The prevalence of diabetes is very high among heart failure patients , while hyperglycemia and diabetes have been associated with increased mortality from pneumonia. We therefore conducted a separate interaction analysis by examining pneumonia mortality among patients with heart failure but not diabetes, patients with diabetes but not heart failure, and patients with joint exposure of heart failure and diabetes.
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Pneumonia Can Often Be Seen On A Chest X
A chest x-ray in a person with pneumonia does not always have the characteristic infiltrate early in the course of the illness. Sometimes, the infiltrate may be in a portion of the lung that is not easily seen by standard x-ray, and other patients may have congestive heart failure or scarring in their lungs, which can mimic pneumonia. Its important to distinguish pneumonia from these other problems because the treatment is very different. In fact, if someone is misdiagnosed with pneumonia and they have a different lung disease, they will probably continue to deteriorate clinically.
Can Bronchitis Cause Enlargement In The Heart
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Diagnosis Of Enlarged Heart
An enlarged heart is diagnosed using a number of tests including:
- medical history including a physical examination
- chest x-ray this allows the doctor to see the overall shape and size of the heart and lungs
- echocardiogram sound waves sent to a special machine present a picture of the beating heart, so the doctor can see the heart as its chambers contract and relax
- Doppler study shows blood flow through the heart valves and evaluates whether the valves are functioning normally
- electrocardiogram measures electrical activity in the heart and can assess heart rhythm and evidence of old infarction or ischaemia.
Symptoms Diagnosis And Treatment Of Pleural Effusion
The pleural effusion might show symptoms like dry cough, chest pain, fever, breathlessness, persistent hiccups etc. if one or more symptoms occur repeatedly, there should be an immediate diagnosis of the chest. The medical practitioner will perform a physical analysis and listen to the activity of lungs with the help of a stethoscope. A chest X-ray might also be done along with the following procedures:
- Ultrasound of the chest.
- Analysis of pleural fluid.
The pleural effusion can be complicated or uncomplicated type. The uncomplicated pleural effusions dont have any visible signs and symptoms and are not likely to cause permanent lung problem. The fluid in uncomplicated type may not be infective and may not cause inflammation. The complicated pleural type may contain fluid along with severe infection or inflammation. They require immediate attention and chest drainage. However, both the types require proper treatment. The fluid is removed carefully from the pleural membrane. A needle is inserted into the chest cavity and the fluid is sucked using a syringe. This procedure is known as Thoracocentesis.
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Cardiovascular Complication After Cap
Involvement of the cardiovascular system after developing CAP is as an important short- and long-term co-morbidity., Corrales-Medina et al. performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies, and found that CC occurred in 18% of CAP patients. Most of the studies showed that the rate of CC is higher among hospitalized patients than outpatients.
Several risk factors are associated with the development of CC in patients with pneumonia. The strongest associated risk factor is preexistent CVD preceding the pneumonia event. Patients with CAP older than 65âyears tend to have higher rates of co-morbidities. The most common co-morbidities include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , ischaemic heart disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes and stroke. However, all these conditions seem to be overrepresented among hosts with compromised immunological status, potentially leading to poor clinical outcomes. In addition, many of these co-morbidities are associated with poor functional and disability status, usually requiring admission to long-term care facilities.,
Prevention Of Enlarged Heart Or Cardiomegaly
If the enlarged heart or cardiomegaly condition is identified in the early stage, then proper treatment can prevent the condition from becomes worst. Controlling or keeping a check on the risk factor can act as a good preventive action. As the condition is related to heart and stress, hence one should try to live a stress-free life. Include a balanced diet and exercise in their daily regime and so on. This will keep the heart healthy and will also facilitate smooth blood flow in the body.
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Do Dogs Have Heart Attacks
In humans a heart attack usually refers to myocardial infarction . Myocardial infarction refers to death of the cells in an area of the heart muscle or myocardium. Cell death is usually due to oxygen deprivation caused by obstruction of the coronary blood vessels that supply blood to the heart muscles. Heart attacks are rare in dogs but unexpected and sudden death in dogs diagnosed with any form of heart disease is possible.