The normal pulmonary vasculature is a low-pressure system compared with the systemic vasculature. Pulmonary hypertension is characterized by a mean pulmonary artery pressure higher than 25 mmHg. The primary pathophysiological process of pulmonary hypertension is a restriction of blood flow through the pulmonary circulation, which leads to increased pulmonary vascular resistance and eventual failure of the right ventricle. Pulmonary hypertension may be idiopathic (PAH) or aconsequence of chronic diseases, including left-sided heart failure, parenchymal lung diseases, and thromboembolic disease. Pathological […]

Blood pressure (BP) homeostasis is a crucial element in the protection of cardiovascular events. Many national and international guidelines – have proposed target values for blood pressure, and these recommendations consider slightly different goals according to hypertension stages, risk stratification and presence of renal or cardiovascular diseases, and target organ lesion. However, these values are based on office measures, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) and home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM), not accounting for blood pressure variability (BPV). BP intraindividual variability […]

Rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) lesions result from a complex network of several genes and proteins that control innate and adaptive immune responses following a Streptococcus pyogenes pharyngo-tonsillitis. The succeeding inflammatory process leads to the development of cardiac lesions with high production of inflammatory cytokines leading to calcification and valvular fibrosis. However, the cellular pathways beyond these immunoregulated phenomena have not been fully elucidated. Oxidative stress is a biological condition marked by an imbalance between reactive oxygen species […]

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays a fundamental role in maintaining cell homeostasis and human life. The functionality of the heart and skeletal muscles is partially modulated by sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the ANS both in resting and exercising conditions. Substantial literature attests to the fact that objective indices of muscle strength reflect health status. It is well-established that heart failure is typically accompanied by skeletal muscle abnormalities that contributed to the exercise intolerance and poor health-related quality of […]