Early detection of cardiac involvement in systemic sclerosis assessed by tissue-Doppler echocardiography: relationship with neurohormonal activation and endothelial dysfunction.

Journal article

OBJECTIVE: Cardiopulmonary complications are common in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). We assessed cardiac involvement in patients with SSc using echocardiography and investigated the association of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) with echocardiographic measures of myocardial function in sera of patients with SSc who had no symptoms of heart failure. METHODS: We prospectively studied 52 patients with SSc (mean age 55.7 +/- 1...

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Authors: Dimitroulas, T; Giannakoulas, G; Papadopoulou, K; Karvounis, H; Dimitroula, H

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Journal of rheumatology
• Volume: 37
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 993-999
• Publication date: 2010-05-01
• DOI: 10.3899/jrheum.090931
• EISSN: 1499-2752
• ISSN: 0315-162X
• Language: English
• Keywords: Arginine; Natriuretic Peptide, Brain; Male; Aged; Adult; Endothelium, Vascular; Myocardial Contraction; Scleroderma, Systemic; Immunoenzyme Techniques; Ventricular Dysfunction, Left; Middle Aged; Analysis of Variance; Peptide Fragments; Blood Flow Velocity; Female; Humans; Echocardiography, Doppler; Prospective Studies