Yanli Liu^1,2, Fengzhen Han², Jian Zhuang⁴, Yanqiu Ou⁴, Yanji Qu⁵, Yanyan Lin², Weina Zhang², Haiping Wang^3,*, Liping Huang^1,*

Congenital Heart Disease, Vol.18, No.5, pp. 561-570, 2023, DOI:10.32604/chd.2023.030511 - 10 November 2023

Abstract Background: Research on fetal congenital heart defect (CHD) mostly focuses on etiology and mechanisms. However, studies on maternal complications or pathophysiology are limited. Our objective was to determine whether vascular dysfunction exists in pregnant women carrying a fetus with congenital heart defects. Methods: We conducted a case-control study. 27 cases of pregnant women carrying a fetus with major CHD admitted to our hospital for delivery between April 2021 and August 2022 were selected. Every case was matched with about 2 pregnant complication-free controls without fetal abnormalities. The proangiogenic and anti-angiogenic factors and pregnancy outcomes were… More > Graphic Abstract

Yuanliang Tang^{1, 2}, Lizhong Mu¹, Ying He^{1, *}

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.16, No.2, pp. 281-296, 2020, DOI:10.32604/fdmp.2020.06760 - 21 April 2020

Abstract The aim of this study is to develop a model of fluid and heat transfer in a biological tissue taking into account the exact structure of the related microvascular network, and to analyze the influence of structural changes of such a network induced by diabetes. A cubic region representing local skin tissue is selected as the computational domain, which in turn includes two intravascular and extravascular sub-domains. To save computational resources, the capillary network is reduced to a 1D pipeline model and embedded into the extravascular region. On the basis of the immersed boundary method… More >

Mariana M. Clavé¹, Nair Y. Maeda², Ana M. Thomaz¹, Sergio P. Bydlowski³, Antonio A. Lopes¹

Congenital Heart Disease, Vol.14, No.2, pp. 246-255, 2019, DOI:10.1111/chd.12688

Abstract Background: Ideally, vasodilator therapies for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) should have a favorable impact on markers of vascular dysfunction, in addition to their known effects on hemodynamics, cardiac function, and patient’s physical capacity.
Methods: We analyzed circulating (plasma) markers of endothelial and platelet activation/dys‐ function (enzyme‐linked immunoassays) in the specific setting of advanced PAH associated with congenital heart disease, during the course of sildenafil and tadalafil therapies. Thirty‐one patients were enrolled (age 10‐54 years), most of them with chronic hypoxemia and elevated hematocrit. Drugs were administered orally for 6 months (sildenafil [n = 16], 20 mg t.i.d.;… More >