[Right ventricular mural endocarditis: description of a case]. / Endocardite murale del ventricolo destro: descrizione di un caso.

We report the case of a 45-year-old man addicted to intravenous drug abuse who was admitted to our hospital for dyspnea, fever and chest pain. Chest X-ray showed diffuse right lung opacity and pleural effusion. Transthoracic echocardiography and contrast-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance imaging revealed a plurilobated, highly mobile mass in the right ventricle originating from the moderator band near the apical trabeculae. Cardiac structure and valves were normal. Blood cultures were positive for Staphylococcus hominis. The diagnosis of infective endocarditis with mural vegetation was made. Specific antibiotic therapy was started with success and after 3 weeks the mass disappeared. Infective endocarditis with mural vegetation in the absence of valvular lesions is uncommon. Differential diagnosis is always required, but clinical course should be our guide in decision making.

[A peculiar case of hypomagnesemia]. / Un singolare caso di ipomagnesemia.

An old man with previous resections of small intestine for infarction and sigmoid for adenocarcinoma presented vomit, vertigo, visual impairment, fatigue, serum non detectable, reduced cellular magnesium, no ECG alterations. For the lack of symptoms proportionate to this alteration, an adaptation to progressive decrease in cellular magnesium is hypothesized.

Different effect of ouabain on endothelin-1-induced extracellular signal-regulated kinase stimulation in rat heart and tail artery.

Endogenous ouabain may play a role in the control of cardiovascular system function. In this study, we investigated the effects of a long-term ouabain treatment on basal and endothelin-1 (ET-1)-induced phosphorylation of cardiac and vascular extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK-1 and ERK-2), which are involved in several cardiac and vascular physiologic and pathologic conditions. Our results show that the hearts from ouabain-treated rats have a higher basal level of ERK-1 and ERK-2 phosphorylation compared with untreated rats. Perfusion of the hearts with ET-1 increased ERK-1 and ERK-2 phosphorylation both in ouabain-treated and in control rats, with a larger stimulatory effect in ouabain-treated animals. On the contrary, exposure of endothelium-free tail artery to ET-1 increased ERKs phosphorylation both in treated and untreated rats, but this effect was blunted in ouabain-treated rats. These findings demonstrate that ouabain treatment has opposite effects on basal and ET-1-induced ERKs phosphorylation in the heart and in the tail artery of the rat.