The History and Culture of Iran and Central Asia from the Pre-Islamic to the Islamic Period. Edited by D. G. Tor and Minoru inaba. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022. Pp. xiv + 349. $90.

Background LIVE (Less Invasive Ventricular Enhancement) with Revivent TC™ is an innovative therapy for symptomatic ischemic Heart Failure (HF). It is designed to reconstruct a negatively remodeled left ventricle (LV) after an anterior myocardial infarction (MI) by plication of the scar tissue. Its indications are specific and, as with any other structural heart intervention, the success of the procedure starts with appropriate patient selection. We aim to present the indications of the technique, crucial aspects in patient selection and individual case planning approach. Methods and Results After clinical evaluation, transthoracic echocardiography is the first imaging modality to be performed in a potential candidate for the therapy. However, definitive indication and detailed case planning rely on late gadolinium-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance imaging or multiphasic contrast-enhanced cardiac computed tomography. These imaging modalities also assist with relative or absolute contra-indications for the procedure. Individual assessment is done to tailor the procedure to the specifics of the LV anatomy and location of the myocardial scar. Conclusion LIVE procedure is a unique intervention to treat symptomatic heart failure and ischemic cardiomyopathy after anterior MI. It is a highly customizable intervention that allows a patient-tailored approach, based on multimodality imaging assessment and planification.

The evidence supporting surgical aneurysmectomy in ischemic heart failure is inconsistent. The aim of the study was to describe long-term effect of minimally invasive hybrid transcatheter and minithoracotomy left ventricular (LV) reconstruction in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy. Twenty-three subjects with transmural anterior wall scarring, LV ejection fraction 15-45%, and New York Heart Association class ≥ II were intervened using Revivent TC anchoring system. LV end-systolic volume index was reduced from 73.2 ± 27 ml at baseline to 51.5 ± 22 ml after 6 months (p < 0.001), 49.9 ± 20 ml after 2 years (p < 0.001), and 56.1 ± 16 ml after 5 years (p = 0.047). NYHA class improved significantly at 5 years compared to baseline. Six-min walk test distance increased at 2 years compared to the 6-month visit. Hybrid LV reconstruction using the anchoring system provides significant and durable LV volume reduction during 5-year follow-up in preselected patients with ischemic heart failure. Legend: Hybrid left ventricular reconstruction using the anchoring system provides significant and durable LV volume reduction throughout 5-year follow-up in preselected patients with ischemic heart failure.

Objectives: Ischemic cardiomyopathy is the principal cause of heart failure. In patients with left ventricular (LV) dilatation, low ejection fraction (EF), and transmural scar in anteroseptal distribution, surgical ventricular reconstruction (SVR) can be considered, although it is an invasive surgical procedure. Less Invasive Ventricular Enhancement (LIVE) technique emerged as a unique intervention to exclude scarred myocardium, improving symptoms and quality of life. We aim to present LIVE contemporary short and mid-term outcomes.

The Revivent TC™ Transcatheter Ventricular Enhancement System (BioVentrix Inc.) is intended for use in heart failure with cardiac dysfunction a previous myocardial infarction. The resultant increased left ventricular systolic volume and discrete, contiguous, noncontractile (akinetic and/or dyskinetic) scar located in the anteroseptal, apical (may extend laterally) region of the left ventricle (LV) lends itself to Revivent. The procedure, called Less Invasive Ventricular Enhancement, consists of the implantation of a series of microanchors pairs to exclude the scarred myocardium, to reduce and reshape the LV. We present the procedure step-by-step, as team coordination between the cardiac surgeon and the interventional cardiologist is essential to ensure good procedural outcomes. This is a novel and new technique to address heart failure secondary to myocardial infarction.

Book Review| March 01 2020 Review: The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, by Stephen J. Shoemaker Stephen J. Shoemaker, The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. 272 pp. ISBN 9780812250404. $59.95. Kevin van Bladel Kevin van Bladel Yale University Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Studies in Late Antiquity (2020) 4 (1): 133–136. https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2020.4.1.133 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Kevin van Bladel; Review: The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, by Stephen J. Shoemaker. Studies in Late Antiquity 1 March 2020; 4 (1): 133–136. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2020.4.1.133 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentStudies in Late Antiquity Search This book is a strong contribution to the sustained surge in publications on “Late Antiquity and Early Islam,” in which the origin of Islam is explained, quite reasonably, by reference to its prior historical context. It is devoted specifically to apocalypticism, that narcissistic belief that the time in which one lives is the very most significant since creation itself, in which the meaning of history will become evident. Building on his earlier book The Death of a Prophet (2012) and an earlier article, and repeating arguments to an extent necessary to make this sequel independent, Shoemaker argues persuasively that late ancient apocalypticism and its formulation as eschatology played a major role in the genesis of Islam in the career of Muḥammad and afterward, both in its early doctrine and in animating the conquests carried out by Muḥammad's followers. In doing so he demonstrates his detailed familiarity with the recent and... You do not currently have access to this content.

AbstractIn Central Asia in the early eleventh century, the Chorasmian scholar Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī recognized that the Arabic works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus were inventions of recent centuries falsely written in the name of the ancient sage of legend. He did, however, accept the existence of a historical Hermes and even attempted to establish his chronology. This article presents al-Bīrūnī’s statements about this and contextualizes his view of the Arabic Hermetica as he derived it from Arabic chronographic sources. Al-Bīrūnī’s argument is compared with the celebrated seventeenth-century European criticism of the Greek Hermetica by Isaac Casaubon. It documents a hitherto unknown but significant event in the reception history of the Hermetica and helps to illustrate al-Bīrūnī’s attitude toward the history of science.

If Mandaeism came into being in Sasanian times, as the sum of the preceding investigations demonstrates, then it is in the context of Sasanian Iraq that we must understand its origin and growth. The report transmitted by Bar Konay states that the Kentaean religion was founded by an idolater of the region of Goḫay who abandoned his idolatry in response to an edict by the Sasanian king Peroz against idols and their priests (ʿal ptakre w-kumrayhon). According to the same account, the Mandaeans were a group partly derivative from the Kentaeans, at least in their doctrine. As seen in Chapter 4, Mandaean authors themselves saw the Kentaeans as uncomfortably similar to themselves and as a group to be shunned. If Kentaeism and Mandaeism are no older than the time of Peroz, it will be worthwhile to attempt to discern whether the Sasanian context of the origin of the Mandaean religion is meaningful for our understanding of it, or whether the Kentaean, Mandaean, and other related cases have anything to offer our understanding of the Sasanian period in Iraq. I will argue here that, although Mandaeism was built by Nāṣoraeans of some kind (admittedly not well understood), it was also the product of a social environment characterized by religious innovation in Sasanian Iraq that arose after the dismantling of the local institutional bases of Babylonian paganism. It is from this population of dispossessed idolaters that many early lay Mandaeans must have been recruited by the baptizing priests. Mandaeism is apparently the longest-lived example of several new movements in a period of religious innovation among the Aramaeans of Sasanian Iraq, triggered as their old religious communities lost their material foundations and priestly leadership. The major fact to be reckoned with is that at the onset of Persian rule in the third century, there were numerous Aramaean pagans worshipping gods represented in statues in established, sometimes wealthy, temples. By the end of the Sasanid dynasty, in the seventh century, these temples seemmostly or entirely to have disappeared. The primary sources shed limited light on the causes and circumstances of this, but it is necessary to extrapolate fromwhat is known to suggest an explanation into which theMandaeans fit as one part of a larger phenomenon.Without this attempt, the Sasanian context of Mandaean origins is less meaningful.1 I shall not argue that Mandaeism is an outgrowth

This brief prospectus addresses the potential and need to realize the full growth of Graeco-Arabic Studies as a field of training and as a part of a broad and inclusive Classical Near Eastern Studies integrating several fields usually construed as separate.

AIMS:To test the feasibility of a thoracoscopically assisted, off-pump, transcatheter ventricular reconstruction (TCVR) approach in an ovine model of left ventricular (LV) anteroapical aneurysm.METHODS AND RESULTS:Myocardial infarction (MI) was induced by coil occlusion of the middle left anterior descending artery and diagonals. Two months after MI creation, TCVR was performed via a minimal thoracotomy in eight sheep. Under endoscopic and fluoroscopic guidance, trans-interventricular septal puncture was performed from the LV epicardial scar. A guidewire was externalised via a snare placed in the right ventricle from the external jugular vein. An internal anchor was inserted over the wire and positioned on the right ventricular septum and an external anchor was deployed on the LV anterior epicardium. Serial pairs of anchors were placed and plicated together to exclude the scar completely. Immediately after TCVR, echocardiography showed LV end-systolic volume decreased from pre-procedure 58.8±16.6 ml to 25.1±7.6 ml (p<0.01) and the ejection fraction increased from 32.0±7.3% to 52.0±7.5% (p<0.01). LV twist significantly improved (3.83±2.21 vs. pre-procedure -0.41±0.94, p=0.01) and the global peak-systolic longitudinal strain increased from -5.64% to -10.77% (p<0.05).CONCLUSIONS:TCVR using minimally invasive access techniques on the off-pump beating heart is feasible and resulted in significant improvement in LV performance.