Aluminium phosphide is commonly used as an insecticide and can be toxic to humans at the cellular level by interfering with mitochondrial energy metabolism. We report on three cases of severe aluminium phosphide cardio-toxicity, resulting in severe decrease in both ventricular heart functions. The first case succumbed to intractable ventricular arrhythmias complicated by multi-organ failure before she died; while the other two cases required invasive hemodynamic support and eventually improved over the course of 10-14 days. We describe our experience and the challenges faced while managing one of them.

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Endocarditis of only the pulmonary valve is a very rare finding and is often missed during echocardiographic evaluation due to limited views of the pulmonary valve and a low index of suspicion. We report 2 cases of pulmonary valve endocarditis (PVE), highlighting the importance of echocardiography in the assessment of the infected pulmonary valve. In addition, we review the published case reports of isolated PVE from 1979 to 2013 in order to study the role of echocardiography in the diagnosis of pulmonary valve masses.

Similar to ischemic preconditioning, high-intensity exercise has been shown to decrease infarct size following myocardial infarction. In this article, we review the literature on beneficial effects of exercise, exercise requirements for cardioprotection, common methods utilized in laboratories to study this phenomenon, and discuss possible mechanisms for exercise-mediated cardioprotection.