We explored the association between plasma growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15) levels and chronic heart failure (CHF) in coronary heart disease patients. We measured plasma GDF-15 and N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels in 269 untreated coronary heart disease patients (98 with CHF, 84 without CHF, and 87 control patients) using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. All subjects were examined by echocardiography and left ventricular ejection fraction.
We aimed at observing the effects of high thoracic epidural anesthesia (HTEA) on cardiac structure and function, heart rate variability (HRV), and QT interval variation (QTV) in ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) patients with chronic heart failure. We divided 30 ICM patients into HTEA (N = 16) and control (N = 14) groups.The control group was treated with medication, and the HTEA group was treated with HTEA and medication for 4 weeks.
