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BACKGROUNDS: The last 30 years have witnessed major improvements in understanding of all aspects of infective endocarditis (IE). The Iranian Registry of Infective Endocarditis (IRIE) was formed to address epidemiological aspects of IE vis-à-vis its main pathogens and underlying heart diseases over a 12-year period. Indeed, a multidisciplinary team (MDT) for IE was developed alongside. METHODS: In a longitudinal observational study, data of adult patients with definite or possible IE based on modified Duke criteria were collected from 2007 to 2016 in our tertiary centre, Iran. From 2016 until 2019, we run a prospective observational study using formation of an IE MDT to provide better patient management and compared data before and after this. RESULTS: Totally, 645 patients with mean age of 48 ± 17 years were enrolled. Data of 445 and 200 patients were compared before and after IRIE and MDT formation, respectively. We found significantly reduced type and number of applied antibiotics (p = 0.04) and higher rate of positive blood culture (p = 0.001). Hospital length of stay increased significantly after formation of the IRIE and IE MDT (p = 0.02). The rate of heart failure, new abscess formation and cerebral emboli were significantly decreased after IRIE and IE MDT (p < 0.001) and consequently in-hospital mortality reduced significantly (p = 0.05). CONCLUSION: Developing national registries and MDTs has potential to enhance patient management and reduce IE burden. Our results demonstrated that establishment of the Iranian IRIE and IE MDT conferred better diagnoses, standardised treatments and significantly reduced cardiac and extra cardiac morbidity.

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Tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) has been suggested for quantitative analysis of regional myocardial function. Myocardial movement included different mechanical phases with different duration and tissue velocity profiles need to high sampling rate in the acquisition of tissue velocity imaging for phases with shorter duration. The aim of this study is determining of frame rate requirement for myocardial tissue velocity imaging for longitudinal and radial functions separately. Tissue velocity imaging recorded from 29 healthy volunteers by use of the apical and para-sternal views. Off-line analysis performed for extracting tissue velocity profiles of the myocardial longitudinal and radial functions. The frequency and subsequently the frame rate calculated separately for all LV segments during two consequent cardiac cycles. Segmental distribution of the time intervals measured in all cardiac phases and the minimum frame rate requirement calculated for each segment. We found significant differences between radial and longitudinal functions (P < 0.001) except early diastolic phases. The presented normal frame rate values for LV segments may useful for accurate studies of myocardial longitudinal and radial functions in different cardiac phases. We conclude that data sampling at a rate of at least 105 and 118 frames per second need for longitudinal and radial functions respectively.

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The aim of this study was to design a new approach for the acquisition of regional radial strain from the middle portion of the interventricular septum. We designed and wrote a program in Matlab (computer-assisted method) for use on a personal computer so that the septum thickness throughout the cardiac cycle could be measured instantaneously. Computer-assisted and conventional manual methods were used on the same 2D echocardiography image frames. Then, real-time 2D color Doppler myocardial imaging and conventional 2D imaging of the septum walls of 12 healthy participants at rest using apical four-chamber view were acquired. Wall thickness was measured using both the computerized program and velocity data used for tracking the segment and intensity line profile modification automatically. Then, the radial strain was estimated. Bland-Altman statistical analysis shows good agreement between the computer-assisted method and conventional manual method. The average of the peak and mean radial strains from the mid-septum of 12 healthy participants were 63.5 +/- 10.7 and 31.7 +/- 7.5%, respectively. We introduced a simple approach that is capable of radial strain estimation of the septum wall, which cannot be measured by current Doppler based methods in echocardiography systems.

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic criteria and angiographic classifications of Takayasu arteritis by presenting the clinical, angiographic, and prognostic findings and a prospective follow-up of 78 patients. Occlusive thromboaortopathy or Takayasu arteritis is a large vessel vasculitis. The disease is systemic with an autoimmune and genetic etiology. The complete clinical and angiographic manifestations are reported for 78 cases based on diagnostic criteria of the American College of Rheumatology with a mean 6 +/- 3.2 years follow-up. The mean age was 34.7 and female:male ratio was 3.6:1. According to National Institute of Health criteria, 61.5% of patients were in the acute phase of disease with systemic symptoms such as fever, weight loss, malaise, and elevated C-reactive protein levels. Immunologic markers, such as antinuclear antibody and antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies, were negative. The tuberculin test result was positive in 47%. Vascular bruit was present in 89%. Almost all patients had stenoses, occlusions, or aneurysmatic changes of the aorta and its main branches. Hypertension was detected in 58% and left ventricular hypertrophy was initially present in 22 (28%) patients. The angiographic manifestations were classified as type I, cervicobrachial type with 20 cases (25.6%); type II, thoracoabdominal type with 13 cases (16.6%); type III, peripheral type with 10 cases (12.8%); and type IV, generalized type with 35 cases (44.8%). The coronary arteries were involved in 6 cases, pulmonary arteries in 11 initially 5 in follow-up (16 cases), and renal arteries in 28 cases, respectively. A good correlation of the clinical manifestations and the prognosis was observed. During follow-up, five patients suffered from myocardial infarction, six had cerebrovascular accident, seven patients underwent aortic valve replacement, and six patients died (mortality rate, 7.6%). The specificity and sensitivity of diagnostic criteria were 94% and 76%, respectively. In contrast to ours and Nasu's classification in the new classification of Numano, some angiographic types and subtypes of Takayasu arteritis are not present in our patients.

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