Silviu Stanciu

• Central Military Hospital Bucharest "Dr Carol Davila",

The differential diagnosis between granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) and infective endocarditis (IE) is crucial. Both diseases show clinical similarities and serologic c-ANCA overlap. We present the case of a 45-year-old patient with inflammatory and anemic syndrome, c-ANCA positivity and initial respiratory and renal symptoms that raised the...

The administration of an anticoagulant in patients with liver disease (nonalcoholic steatohepatitis—NASH, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease—NAFLD, chronic hepatitis, or cirrhosis) who have an indication (atrial fibrillation, venous thrombosis, or pulmonary embolism) is challenging because there is an imbalance between thrombosis and bleeding. There...

Resistance exercise training is well documented as having cardiovascular benefits, but paradoxically, it seems to increase arterial stiffness, favoring the development of high blood pressure. The present study investigates the potential effects of oral supplementation with arginine in healthy individuals performing exercise resistance training. We...

Featured Application Hypertension detection analyzing the morphology of the PPG signal aided by Machine Learning Techniques. Abstract In our modern digitalized world, hypertension detection represents a key feature that enables self-monitoring of cardiovascular parameters, using a wide range of smart devices. Heart rate and blood oxygen saturatio...

Left ventricle systolic function is an essential parameter in different clinical scenarios and the usual methods available for its assessment are sometime suboptimal, depending on the filling conditions of the heart. Therefore, the development and implementation in clinical practice of a new parameter for assessing left ventricle contractile functi...

In the ever evolving landscape of systemic immune mediated diseases, an increased awareness regarding the associated cardiovascular system impairment has been noted in recent years. Even though primary Sjögren’s Syndrome (pSS) is one of the most frequent autoimmune diseases affecting middle-aged individuals, the cardiovascular profile of this speci...

"Objective. This narrative review sought to identify the most frequently used types of exercises in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation programs and to verify the level of efficiency and feasibility of this treatment method in cardiovascular diseased patients. Methods. We conducted research via Pubmed over two months using specific keywords related to c...

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic challenged the authorities into taking measures that limit the spread of the virus in the community. TAMEC project (Advanced Community Approaches to Epidemic Management) developed a system that detects the contacts of patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and alerts them using mobile applications. It allows real-time a...

Simultaneous or sequential combination of prosthetic valve (PV) thrombosis and infectious endocarditis is a rare clinical finding. The management of these patients involves a complex multidisciplinary strategy using clinical judgment and imaging techniques. Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and especially 3D transesophageal echocardiography is...

Left ventricle noncompaction or noncompaction cardiomyopathy is a rare cause of cardiomyopathy, presumed to be the consequence of the cessation of the embryological phenomenon of progressive compaction of the ventricular myocardium (which normally occurs between the 5th and 8th week) with the persistence, to varying degrees, of prominent trabeculae...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an important tool for computer-aided diagnosis of medical imaging. This review aims to provide an overview for clinicians, explaining the relevant aspects of artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) and presenting up-to-date applications of AI and ML techniques to medical imaging methods such as angi...

As reported by literature, rheumatoid arthritis is a rheumatic disease with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular complications. Early detection of atherosclerosis by non-invasive techniques represent a current challenge of patient management. Current EULAR guidelines recommend careful monitoring of cardiovascular risk factors by stratific...

Coronary artery calcium score (CAC) measures the calcium contained in the artery wall and it is evaluated using multi-slice cardiac CT and CAC represents a useful tool for appreciating the burden of coronary atherosclerosis and for determining the risk for cardiovascular events. The purpose of this study is that CAC can be use for guiding treatment...

Introduction We present the case of a 50 year old woman, active smoker, hypercholesterolemic, nondiabetic, with normal body mass index, referred to our cardiology department for atypical chest pain and ECG changes (diffuse negative T waves in V1-V6, DII, DIII) (Panel A), also present on a resting ECG recorded 4 years previously. Purpose To highlig...

Objective "ESCAPE Stroke" (Enhancement, Segmentation and Characterization of Atheroma PlaquE for Stroke Prevention) is a multidisciplinary project that aims to develop a new software tool to obtain maximum information about carotid atherosclerosis, through the (semi)automatic analysis of the morphological characteristics of the carotid plaque. We p...

Background Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), the single most important metric in cardiology, is the cornerstone on which prognosis is estimated and costly decisions such as whether to implant an ICD are based. LVEF is most often assessed by 2D echocardiography (2DE), although 3D echocardiography (3DE) has been shown repeatedly to be more a...

Purpose: To compare SCORE and PROCAM risk scores and evaluate the correlation between markers of subclinical cardiovascular injury with the occurrence of clinically diagnosed heart disease. Methods: Ten years ago, we screened 190 apparently healthy subjects through a cardiovascular primary prevention program for risk factors and we measured brachi...

The continuously increasing number of medical investigations using radiological methods imposes the strong necessity of informing patients about benefits and risks regarding radiation absorbed doses. Tracking the radiation doses absorbed by patients must be a future challenge of any medical system. The effective doses received by patients in many t...

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic progressive inflammatory disease of the axial skeleton and peripheral joints associated with HLA B27 antigen and with the predominance of the male gender (with an average between 20 and 30 years old). Case presentation A 48 years old male patient was admitted to our clinic, having a long history regarding th...

Behcet's disease is a rare and poorly understood condition with multiple systemic manifestations. The disease causes inflammation in blood vessels throughout the body which leads to numerous symptoms that may appear and disappear unpredictable. Case presentation A 33 year old woman was admitted (interned) to our clinic. Her family medical history r...

This article illustrates the use of contrast-enhanced ultrasound in the risk assessment of carotid atherosclerotic lesions, especially in challenging plaques evaluation. Materials and methods: For 23 patients with difficult duplex ultrasound examination due to carotid tortuosity or calcifications we assessed plaque morphology (contour, echogenicity...

Background Heart rate variability and autonomic nervous system dysfunction have a recognised value in the assessment of the prognostic of heart disease and it is well known that variability decreases with age and in heart failure or ischemic patients, as a predictor for worsen outcome and for an increase in mortality and morbidity. Materials and m...

The Romanian project of an integrated system for radiation safety of the patients investigated by radiological imaging methods, it‘s implementation flows and statistical results are presented in this paper. The new system is based on smart cards and Public Key Infrastructure, and allows radiation effective dose data storage, a cumulative method and...

Imaging methods such as radiographies, computed tomographies or scintigraphies expose the patients to a cumulative effective dose of radiation that could often exceed the maximum allowed dose. A three months medical study in a Romanian hospital showed, despite the great concern of radiation exposure, the skyrocketing volume of imaging investigation...

Introduction: Chronic heart failure is a major health problem worldwide and despite the therapeutic advances, the mortality and morbidity still remain high. Echocardiography is the gold standard for left ventricular function assessment and may provide prognostic information for predicting future heart failure events. Patients and methods: We ana...

In this paper the project of an integrated system for radiation safety and security of the patients investigated by radiological imaging methods is presented. The new system is based on smart cards and Public Key Infrastructure. The new system allows radiation effective dose data storage and a more accurate reporting system.

In this paper the project of an integrated system for radiation safety and security of the patients investigated by radiological imaging methods is presented. The new system is based on smart cards and Public Key Infrastructure. The new system allows radiation effective dose data storage and a more accurate reporting system.

In this paper an integrated electronic system for syncope detection is presented. The system is based on heart rate monitoring and fall detection and it is able to sent an alert using GPS and GSM support.

Purpose: To examine the influence of blood pressure variability on endothelial function assessed by brachial artery flow mediated dilatation. Methods: We screened 190 individuals without history of cardiovascular disease in a primary prevention program recording age (45,62±8,72 years), sex (48,4% males), body mass index (BMI = 27,03±4,79 kg/m2), wa...

In this paper we present the project of an integrated system for radiation safety and security of the patients investigated by radiological imaging methods such as radiographies, computed tomographies or scintigraphies. The system is based on smart cards and Public Key Infrastructure. The implementation of system's architecture has three distinct l...

Purpose Heart rate adjustment of exercise-induced ST-segment depression (ST/HR index and ST/HR hysteresis) has been suggested as an accurate predictor of the presence of a coronary artery disease. Its powerful predictive value for proven coronary artery stenosis is now accepted. The objective of our study was to investigate the sentitivity and spec...

Purpose The capability ST/HR index and ST/HR hysteresis in detection of ischemia has been validated in patients undergoing standard exercise testing. Its predictive value has never been assessed in pharmacological stress tests using adenosine or dipyridamol. The objective of our study was to compare the sensitivity and the specificity of ST/HR inde...

Background ST segment/heart rate hysteresis can improve the diagnostic performance of the exercise ECG for prediction of coronary artery disease and cardiovascular mortality. As this simple variable integrates the heart-rate adjusted ST segment depression during exercise and recovery phase, ST/HR hysteresis is related both to ischemia and sympathov...

Background T-wave alternans (TWA) and heart rate turbulence (HRT) measured during 24 hour-ECG recordings are 2 powerful non-invasive tools to risk-stratify cardiovascular patients. The aim of our study is to assess whether a fast ECG-holter scan yields different information from classical 24-hour ambulatory ECG regarding TWA and HRT measurements. M...

Background The association between COPD and metabolic syndrome (MS) are frequently seen in daily clinical practice, but the cardiac impact on right ventricular (RV) functional profile using strain and strain rate of free wall is poorly studied in this group of patients. Methods Thirty-two patients with COPD (FEV1 = 48.9 ± 0.4; sPAP = 32.8 ± 0.4; 6-...

We present the case of young women who developed celiac disease during the treatment for chronic hepatitis C. Celiac disease is now considered to be an immune disorder that is triggered by an environmental agent in genetically predisposed persons. Many studies have shown that the total prevalence of gluten sensitive-enteropathy has increased over l...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and obesity are major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide and, according to current data, the global burden of these conditions will increase further. Obesity plays a major role in the development of the metabolic syndrome and has been identified as an important risk factor for chronic diseases such as...

Metabolic Syndrome (MS) is frequent in patients with COPD, almost 50% of patients with COPD had one or more components of metabolic syndrome (MS). Moreover, it was demonstrated that BMI might be one of the determinants of COPD phenotype. Chronic comorbid diseases affect health outcomes in COPD, in fact, patients with COPD mainly die of non-respirat...

In medical practice, the colonic diverticulitis diagnosis is easy, based especially on a barium enema and an inferior digestive endoscopy, but the diverticulitis complications, especially metastatic infections, raise serious positive and differential diagnosis problems. We present the case of a 51 year old male who comes with hepatomegaly and multi...

The vibroacoustic signals emitted by the diarthrodial articulation during a normal movement differentiates a healthy case from a pathologic one, due to alteration in forms and contact surfaces. The differences are shown by a various dynamics of the vibroacoustic spectra. Parametric representation of the acquired signals, filtering and clinical inte...

Unlabelled: Higher values of pulse pressure (PP)--the difference between systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP)--are associated with an increased cardiovascular risk; SBP and DBP values are correlated with serum levels of gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), both in drinkers and non-drinkers subjects. Moreover, some studies...

Large longitudinal studies showed the epidemiological link between obesity and hypertension. During last years, multiple possible mechanisms involved in this association were identified. Adipose tissue has an important role in the genesis of hypertension in obese patients through several pathways: insulin resistance, leptin, renin-angiotensin-aldos...

Several epidemiological studies showed that pulse pressure (PP), as a marker of large arterial stiffness, is an independent predictor of cardiovascular risk. A high pulse pressure may induce lesions of the vessel walls and of the endothelium of the large arteries. Now, inflammation represents one of the most extensively studied pathways involved in...