Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have a high risk of recurring thrombotic events following acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Microparticles (MPs) are circulating small vesicles shed from various cells. Platelet microparticles (PMPs) reflect platelet activation and endothelial microparticles (EMPs) reflect endothelial activation or dysfunction. Both increase following AMI, and may mediate important biological effects. We hypothesized that AMI patients with CKD have further elevated PMPs and EMPs compared with non-CKD patients, despite concurrent antithrombotic treatment.

Management of acute chest pain focuses on diagnosis or safe rule-out of an acute coronary syndrome (ACS). We aim to determine the additional value of self-reported computerised history taking (CHT).

Patients with Myocardial Infarction with Non-Obstructive Coronary Arteries (MINOCA) are a heterogenous group and previous studies indicate a decreased Health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) compared with patients with myocardial infarction with obstructive coronary artery disease and healthy individuals. However, longitudinal data are scarce. Therefore, the aim was to explore HRQoL among patients with MINOCA during a one-year period after the acute event in comparison with a group of healthy individuals and to describe HRQoL in patients with Takotsubo Syndrome (TTS).

Vitamin D deficiency is common in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), and is associated with endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular disease. We performed a meta-analysis to assess the effect of vitamin D treatment on flow mediated vasodilation (FMD) in CKD patients.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), partly due to endothelial dysfunction and chronic inflammation. Vitamin D treatment in end stage renal disease is suggested to modulate the immune system and lead to improved outcomes. We and others have demonstrated that treatment with vitamin D or activated vitamin D analogues protects the endothelial function in less severe renal disease as well. Since the endothelial protection might be mediated by vitamin D effects on inflammation, we assessed levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and micro RNAs (miRs) in patients with moderate CKD, treated with an active vitamin D analogue (paricalcitol).

COVID-19 is also manifested with hypercoagulability, pulmonary intravascular coagulation, microangiopathy, and venous thromboembolism (VTE) or arterial thrombosis. Predisposing risk factors to severe COVID-19 are male sex, underlying cardiovascular disease, or cardiovascular risk factors including noncontrolled diabetes mellitus or arterial hypertension, obesity, and advanced age. The VAS-European Independent Foundation in Angiology/Vascular Medicine draws attention to patients with vascular disease (VD) and presents an integral strategy for the management of patients with VD or cardiovascular risk factors (VD-CVR) and COVID-19. VAS recommends (1) a COVID-19-oriented primary health care network for patients with VD-CVR for identification of patients with VD-CVR in the community and patients' education for disease symptoms, use of eHealth technology, adherence to the antithrombotic and vascular regulating treatments, and (2) close medical follow-up for efficacious control of VD progression and prompt application of physical and social distancing measures in case of new epidemic waves. For patients with VD-CVR who receive home treatment for COVID-19, VAS recommends assessment for (1) disease worsening risk and prioritized hospitalization of those at high risk and (2) VTE risk assessment and thromboprophylaxis with rivaroxaban, betrixaban, or low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) for those at high risk. For hospitalized patients with VD-CVR and COVID-19, VAS recommends (1) routine thromboprophylaxis with weight-adjusted intermediate doses of LMWH (unless contraindication); (2) LMWH as the drug of choice over unfractionated heparin or direct oral anticoagulants for the treatment of VTE or hypercoagulability; (3) careful evaluation of the risk for disease worsening and prompt application of targeted antiviral or convalescence treatments; (4) monitoring of D-dimer for optimization of the antithrombotic treatment; and (5) evaluation of the risk of VTE before hospital discharge using the IMPROVE-D-dimer score and prolonged post-discharge thromboprophylaxis with rivaroxaban, betrixaban, or LMWH.

Biological considerations suggest that renin-angiotensin system inhibitors might influence the severity of COVID-19. We aimed to evaluate whether continuing versus discontinuing renin-angiotensin system inhibitors (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers) affects outcomes in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19.

Chest pain is one of the most common complaints in emergency departments (EDs). Self-reported computerized history taking (CHT) programmes can be used for interpretation of the clinical significance of medical information coming directly from patients. The adoption of CHT in clinical practice depends on reactions and attitudes to the technology from patients and their belief that the technology will have benefits for their medical care. The study objective was to explore the user experience of the self-reported CHT programme Clinical Expert Operating System (CLEOS) in the setting of patients visiting an ED for acute chest pain.

Coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD) has been proposed as an important pathophysiological mechanism in Takotsubo syndrome (TTS). Our aims were (i) to evaluate and compare levels of CMD in patients with TTS and patients with ischaemia and no obstructive coronary arteries (INOCA) and (ii) to investigate associations between CMD and clinical parameters, left ventricular function, and coronary atherosclerosis in TTS.

Sex-differences in the pathobiology of myocardial infarction are well established but incompletely understood. Improved knowledge on this topic may help clinicians to improve management of men and women with myocardial infarction.

Microparticles (MPs) are biomarkers and mediators of disease through their expression of surface receptors, reflecting activation or stress in their parent cells. Endothelial markers, ICAM-1 and VCAM-1, are implicated in atherosclerosis and associated with cardiovascular risk. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients have endothelial dysfunction and high levels of endothelial derived MPs. Vitamin D treatment has been reported to ameliorate endothelial function in CKD patients. We aimed to examine cell specific MP profiles and concentrations of MPs expressing the atherosclerotic markers ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 after treatment with paricalcitol in patients with CKD stage 3-4.

Patients' medical histories are the salient dataset for diagnosis. Prior work shows consistently, however, that medical history-taking by physicians generally is incomplete and not accurate. Such findings suggest that methods to improve the completeness and accuracy of medical history data could have clinical value. We address this issue with expert system software to enable automated history-taking by computers interacting directly with patients, i.e. computerized history-taking (CHT). Here we compare the completeness and accuracy of medical history data collected and recorded by physicians in electronic health records (EHR) with data collected by CHT for patients presenting to an emergency room with acute chest pain. Physician history-taking and CHT occurred at the same ED visit for all patients. CHT almost always preceded examination by a physician. Data fields analyzed were relevant to the differential diagnosis of chest pain and comprised information obtainable only by interviewing patients. Measures of data quality were completeness and consistency of negative and positive findings in EHR as compared with CHT datasets. Data significant for the differential of chest pain was missing randomly in all EHRs across all data items analyzed so that the dimensionality of EHR data was limited. CHT files were near complete for all data elements reviewed. Separate from the incompleteness of EHR data, there were frequent factual inconsistencies between EHR and CHT data across all data elements. EHR data did not contain representations of symptoms that were consistent with those reported by patients during CHT. Trial registration: This study is registered at https://www.clinicaltrials.gov (unique identifier: NCT03439449).