Articles & Issues

Organizing Committee of the 15th Annual Scientific Meeting

The approach to the HF patient is guided by the two principal goals of HF care, to improve quality and duration of life. Therefore, HF care comprises many components:

The endogenous natriuretic peptides ANP, BNP and CNP, via particulate guanylyl cyclase (GC) receptors and the second messenger cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), are potent activators of key signa...

A substantial portion of patients with heart failure (HF) has relatively normal or preserved ejection fraction (PEF). This type of HF is termed as “diastolic heart failure (DHF)” because it is associa...

Background: Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is a novel inflammatory marker and a member of pentraxin superfamily including C-reactive protein (CRP). The relationship between inflammatory markers and HFNEF remains ...

Prognosis of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFPEF) has not been improved because of unestablished therapeutic strategy. Our experimental studies have reported the efficiency of angiot...

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most frequently encountered sustained tachyarrhythmia in clinical practice and is related to significant morbidity and mortality. Although its pathophysiology has been ...

The treatment of heart failure (HF) is still challenging, even though there are a lot of strategies such as drugs, drips, and devices. Atrial fibrillation (AF) and HF often coexist, and worsen each ot...

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) reduces mortality and improves heart failure symptoms, quality of life and many neurohumoral factors. Furthermore left ventricular function improves gradually a...

It is increasingly appreciated that chronic inflammatory processes are crucially involved in various chronic diseases and cancer. We recently demonstrated that obesity induces inflammation in visceral...

Periodontitis is a common, bacterially induced, localized and chronic inflammatory disease. Although periodontitis may affect systemic inflammation, the association between periodontitis and cardiovas...

Immune reaction in the various organs is known to play the pathological role in chronic organ failure. However the role of immune reaction in heart failure has been unclear. We focused on the immune r...

B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) possesses beneficial cardiorenal actions and is used as a drug for heart failure (HF). Paradoxically, circulating BNP is elevated in HF leading to the use of BNP as a ...

Background: Hypertension (HT) is an important precursor of heart failure (HF). Neurohumoral factors play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of HF. However, the relationships between neurohumoral fa...

Although human cardiac stem cell transplantation had functional benefits in the recovery in experimental myocardial infarction, the major barrier limiting its clinical application is the death of the ...

Generating iPS cells by a combination of defined factors demonstrated that somatic cells can be induced to change their cell fate. Many fibroblasts exist in the post-natal heart, but no single master ...

Heart failure (HF) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in developed countries and afflicts more than 55 million people in the united states. Patients with chronic HF manifests progressive ca...

The guideline for acute heart failure syndromes (AHFS) was issued in 2006 from the Japanese Circulation Society committee and is now updating. The most important issue is to review periodically whethe...

Sleep disordered breathing including sleep apnea is very often associated with heart failure. Not only that, SDB plays an important role in the onset and progression of heart failure. Therefore, early...

Sleep disorders including insomnia, sleep apnea and periodic leg movements during sleep are common in patients with advanced heart failure (HF), and are associated with both impaired quality of life a...

Background: Patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) have limited exercise tolerance, thereby leading to impaired quality of life. Recent studies revealed that Waon therapy improved exercise toleranc...

Background: We have reported that Waon therapy improves cardiac function, and prognosis of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). CHF is characterized by generalized sympathetic activation and par...

Background: In patients with pulmonary embolism or pulmonary artery hypertension, increased pulmonary artery resistance causes high pulmonary artery pressure, low cardiac output and tricuspid regurgit...

The role of RV function is unclear in mortality and morbidity of patients with advanced heart failure. We examined serial 15 patients with NYHA class 3 or 4, LVDd >65mm and severe functional mitral...

In contrast to the right heart failure in the acquired heart disease, that in the congenital heart disease (CHD) develops after the chronically accumulated insult of hemodynamic overload. Right ventri...

Lactate supplied from the interstitium and vasculature can be taken up and used in highly oxidative cells (red skeletal and cardiac myocytes, hepatocytes, and neurons). This intracellular lactate shut...

Purpose: Cardiac enlargement in chronic phase after myocardial infarction is a serious problem since it leads to mortal arrhythmia and/or heart failure. Although cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program ha...

Myocarditis causes myocardial necrosis and inflammation, leading to cardiac dysfunction and failure. Myocarditis is, therefore, treated as following intervention: 1) to eliminate the cause, 2) to impr...

Peripartum cardiomyopathy is a rare disease that occurs in the last stage of pregnancy up to 5 months postpartum in previously healthy women. Although this is life-threatening cardiomyopathy, little w...

Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a medical and financial burden worldwide. It is of importance to elucidate molecular mechanism underlying CHF and develop specific treatments, particularly in our cou...