[Valvular heart disease in patients with anti-phospholipid syndrome]. / Cardiopatía valvular en pacientes con síndrome antifosfolipídico.

INTRODUCTION: Anti-phospholipid antibodies (APA) may involve heart and valvular heart disease seems to be the most common clinical manifestation. OBJECTIVES: To study the prevalence and characteristics of valvular heart disease in a large patient population with anti-phospholipid syndrome (APS) and also to analyze the clinical and immunological profile of patients with valvular involvement compared with those without involvement. Patients and methods. Retrospective analysis of 113 patients diagnosed of APS. Eighty-one percent were females and the mean age was 39 years (SD:14). Sixty-two percent of patients were diagnosed of primary APS (70 patients) and the remaining 38% (43 patients) corresponded to patients with APS associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The median follow-up of patients was 55 months (range: 7-144 months). The cardiologic assessment was performed by means of transthoracic echocardiogram. The study of anti-lupus anticoagulant (AL) was performed by means of coagulometric assays and measurement of anticardiolipin antibodies (aCL), anti-beta2 glycoprotein I (abeta2-PGI) and anti-prothrombin (aPT) by ELISA. RESULTS: The prevalence of valvular heart disease was 19%. The mitral valve was mostly involved (91%) and the most common structural abnormality corresponded to mitral insufficiency. Valvular replacement was required in 24% of patients. In the subgroup of patients with valvular heart disease, a significantly higher prevalence was observed in the following parameters: total thrombosis (71% versus 49%; p = 0.05), arterial thrombosis (57% versus 23%; p = 0.002), stroke (38% versus 13%; p = 0.01), trombocitopenia (71% versus 45%; p = 0.02), hemolytic anemia (29% versus 9%; p = 0.02), and livedo reticularis (48% versus 3%; p < 0.0001). As for immunological differences, only a higher prevalence of LA was found (81% versus 59%; p= 0.04) and abeta2-GPI (IgG isotype) (43% versus 22%; p = 0.05) in patients with valvular heart disease. CONCLUSIONS: Valvular heart disease is more frequent in pa-tients with APS and mitral insufficiency is the most common lesion. In a patient with the diagnosis of APS, an echocar-digram should be obtained in his/her initial assessment and regular controls should be obtained in the follow-up.

Manifestaciones clínicas e inmunológicas asociadas a la infección crónica por el virus de la hepatitis C / Clinical manifestations and immunology assiciated with chronic infection with hepatitis C virus

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Neuropatía óptica isquémica anterior secundaria a arteritis de Horton / Anterior ischemic optic neuropathy due to temporal arteritis

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Captopril in essential hypertension.

1 Forty-one patients with essential hypertension, stages I, II, and III, were treated with captopril alone or in combination with hydrochlorothiazide. Forty two percent were responsive to captopril alone, while the remaining 58% also required the diuretic. The need for the diuretic was related to the phase of hypertension. 2 There was no significant relation between drug response and plasma renin activity. Serum concentrations of creatinine and potassium remained normal, and there were no pathological changes in serum glucose, cholesterol, uric acid concentrations, erythrocyte count, packed cell volume, haemoglobin, or heart rate. 3 Captopril was well tolerated. One patient developed a rash and another ageusia, which disappeared spontaneously. A third, who was also taking allopurinol, developed leucopenia but it disappeared after treatment was withdrawn. There were no cases of proteinuria attributable to captopril; and proteinuria disappeared in four of five patients who were proteinurin before the start of treatment. 4 These findings suggest that doses of captopril of 150 mg to 300 mg (with or without a diuretic) may be adequate for controlling the blood pressure of most patients with essential hypertension.