Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a multifactorial, chronic disease process that leads to pulmonary arterial endothelial dysfunction and smooth muscular hypertrophy, resulting in impaired pliability and hemodynamics of the pulmonary vascular system, and consequent right ventricular dysfunction. Existing treatments target limited pathways with only modest improvement in disease morbidity, and little or no improvement in mortality. Ongoing research has focused on the molecular basis of pulmonary arterial hypertension and is going to be important in the discovery of new treatments and genetic pathways involved. This review focuses on the molecular pathogenesis of pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Atherosclerosis is a multifactorial, lipoprotein-driven condition that leads to plaque formation within the arterial tree, leading to subsequent arterial stenosis and thrombosis that accounts for a large burden of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality globally. Atherosclerosis of the lower extremities is called peripheral artery disease and is a major cause of loss in mobility, amputation, and critical limb ischemia. Peripheral artery disease is a common condition with a gamut of clinical manifestations that affects an estimated 10 million people in the United States of America and 200 million people worldwide. The role of apolipoprotein B-containing lipoproteins, such as LDL and remnant lipoproteins in the development and progression of atherosclerosis, is well-established. The focus of this paper is to review existing data on lipid-lowering therapies in lower extremity atherosclerotic peripheral artery disease.
Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a chronic, progressive disorder of the pulmonary vasculature with associated pulmonary and cardiac remodeling. PAH was a uniformly fatal disease until the late 1970s, but with the advent of targeted therapies, the life expectancy of patients with PAH has now considerably improved. Despite these advances, PAH inevitably remains a progressive disease with significant morbidity and mortality. Thus, there is still an unmet need for the development of new drugs and other interventional therapies for the treatment of PAH. One shortcoming of currently approved vasodilator therapies is that they do not target or reverse the underlying pathogenesis of the disease process itself. A large body of evidence has evolved in the past two decades clarifying the role of genetics, dysregulation of growth factors, inflammatory pathways, mitochondrial dysfunction, DNA damage, sex hormones, neurohormonal pathways, and iron deficiency in the pathogenesis of PAH. This review focuses on newer targets and drugs that modify these pathways as well as novel interventional therapies in PAH.
UNSTRUCTURED From March to June in 2020, most of the world underwent social isolation, mandated quarantine, or lockdown to prevent the excessive spread and eventual casualties from COVID-19. Such isolation meant a dramatic change from routine livelihood. Though the isolation was essential to contain the disease spread, we argue that the drastic change from daily life must have led to several psychological issues. There is a lack of enough evidence and research in the literature about the mental health of the Indian population. This also leads to a lack of awareness of symptoms and presentations of different disorders of mental health in the general public. Therefore, we chose this target population to help us recognize the culture-specific and general effects of lockdown and social isolation on their psyche. The present study has both qualitative and quantitative arms. The qualitative arms of this study aim to analyze the psychosocial and behavioral effects of social isolation and mandated quarantine or lockdown, along with assessing the amount of awareness and knowledge regarding the disease spectrum caused by COVID-19 in the Indian population. The quantitative arm of the study aims to examine the extent of association between psychosocial/behavioral effects and various demographic factors in the said target population, viz. age, sex, etc. The main purpose of the study is to establish the present status of mental health in the general Indian population and the direct effects of social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background During the year 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread from China to the rest of the world, which prompted the world to implement a widespread mandated quarantine or social isolation. The impending uncertainty of the pandemic must have resulted in a variety of widespread mental health maladies. There has been documentation in the literature about a lot of these in small populations of the world but limited studies have been conducted in India, leading to limited evidence in the literature. Objective The main objective of our study is to investigate the mental health effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the general population in India both quantitatively and qualitatively. These results will help contribute to reducing the knowledge gap that is recognized in the literature, which is the result of the unprecedented and novel nature of the pandemic. Methods We designed and validated our own questionnaire and used the method of circulating the questionnaire via WhatsApp (Facebook Inc). WhatsApp is a social media app that is very popularly used in India; hence, it turned out to be an effective medium for gathering pilot data. We analyzed the pilot data and used them to validate the questionnaire. This was done with the expertise of our mentor, Nilima Shah, MD (psychiatry). We gathered pilot data on 545 subjects and used the results to determine the changes that were needed for the questionnaire while simultaneously validating the questionnaire. Results The study protocol was approved in September 2020 by the institutional review board at Vadilal Sarabhai General Hospital, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Conclusions The following preliminary assumptions can be made about the study based on the pilot data: the majority of the survey respondents were male (289/545, 53%), most of them were educated and employed as health care workers (199/545, 36.5%). The majority of the responders were self-employed (185/545, 33.9%), single (297/545, 54.5%), and stayed with their families (427/541, 79%) for the lockdown, which helped them psychologically. Findings that are specific to mental health have been elaborated upon in the manuscript. It is evident from the data collected in previous literature that the pandemic has had significant detrimental effects on the mental health of a vast proportion of the Indian population. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/29896
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