Valvular heart disease (VHD) is one of the important etiologies for heart failure, in that severe dysfunction of aortic and mitral valves causes worse clinical outcomes. While the guidelines on the management of VHD have been updated in early 2020 in Japan, the environment surrounding this field has been rapidly evolving. Recently, catheter-based interventional technologies for VHD have been developed. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has become a preferred interventional strategy for treatment of elderly or high-risk surgical patients with severe aortic stenosis. Moreover, transcatheter mitral valve edge-to-edge repair with MitraClip offers an alternative to open surgical repair or replacement in patients with severe mitral regurgitation at increased risk for surgery. The aim of this mini-review is to briefly mention the recent updates of the guidelines on VHD in Japan, and current issues and future prospects of TAVI and MitraClip.

　The ISCHEMIA (International Study of Comparative Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches) was highly anticipated study in the field of cardiology. This article briefly provides a review of the ISCHEMIA trial and better understanding regarding coronary revascularization in patients with stable ischemic heart disease.

　Coronary computed tomography (CT) is useful for the diagnosis of stable angina pectoris, and its high diagnostic accuracy for the detection of significant coronary artery stenosis has been identified in many previous studies. The effectiveness of utilizing CT in detecting myocardial ischemia by evaluating the perfusion of the left ventricular myocardium has also been reported, but it is not being widely used in daily clinical practice because of its difficulty.

　Recently, the fractional flow reserve (FFR) versus angiography for multi-vessel evaluation (FAME) trial revealed that the prognosis was significantly higher for the patients who underwent coronary artery revascularization therapy (CART) based on FFR than for those who underwent CART based on the visual assessment of significant stenosis. Several studies on coronary angiography have reported a difference between the visually and functionally significant coronary stenosis i.e. degree of stenosis detected visually may not be the same as that shown by the FFR. We are now able to evaluate FFR using the new computational fluid dynamics software by analyzing the normal coronary CT data. The diagnostic accuracy of this FFR on CT is relatively high when compared with invasive FFR measured by coronary angiography, which is the current gold standard. Evaluation of functionally significant coronary artery stenosis on CT has the potential to reduce unnecessary invasive coronary angiographies without increase in the number cardiac events (which may occur owing to misdiagnosis based on the FFR-CT analysis), as reported by some recent clinical studies. By using this software, we can also predict what the new FFR value would be after the coronary arteries have undergone revascularization via percutaneous coronary artery intervention or coronary artery bypass grafting. In this article, we would like to introduce the clinical utility of measuring FFR using CT and its future perspectives to the clinicians.

　目的：皮膚色は患者の病状の評価に有用であるが，急性の病態変化と皮膚色の変化に関する研究は少ない．本研究では維持透析患者の前腕皮膚色を測定し，透析前後の皮膚色の変化の有無，およびその関連因子について検討した．

　方法：対象は血液透析患者13 人（67.3 ± 9.6 歳）．透析前後でシャント形成していない前腕皮膚色を分光測色計で測定し，L^＊a^＊b^＊表色系で示した．除水量・透析前後のバイタルサイン・ヘモグロビン・ヘマトクリットも測定し，透析前後の皮膚色の変動を把握した上で，皮膚色の変化と除水量等との関係を検討した．

　結果：透析前後の前腕皮膚色は，L^＊とb^＊の低下，およびa^＊の上昇を認めた．除水量とL^＊の変化量（ΔL^＊）との間に負の相関，除水量と色差ΔE^＊ ab との間には正の相関を認めた．血圧の変化量とΔL^＊には正の相関を認めた．

　結論：透析前後の皮膚色の明度L^＊の変化は，除水量および血圧と関連していた．

　背景： BMI や血圧値の経年変化と相互の関連性に関しては十分に解明されていない．

　対象と方法：2010 および2019 年度の定期健康診断結果を継時的に比較しうる東武鉄道（株）本社社員476 名を対象とし，10 年間の① BMI 増減率，②収縮期血圧・拡張期血圧の増減率を算出し，両者の関連性に関して年代別，性別，降圧治療の有無，および体型別に解析した．

　結果：（1）全体として，BMI 増減と収縮期血圧増減の間にr ＝ 0.21，拡張期血圧増減との間にr ＝ 0.26 の弱い正相関を認めた．（2）この相関関係は，年齢50 〜60 代，男性，肥満体型者でより強い傾向があった．（3）降圧治療中の例では，BMI の低下は良好な血圧コントロールをもたらした．（4）無治療正常血圧例におけるBMI 上昇は血圧上昇をもたらし，新たに要治療と判定された例はいずれも有意のBMI 上昇例であった．（5）肥満体型者における10％以上のBMI 低下が有意の血圧低下をもたらした一方，正常体型者における10％以上のBMI 上昇は有意の血圧上昇をもたらした．

　結論：血圧を良好にコントロールし心血管リスクを低減させるためには，BMI を長期的に正常範囲内に保持することが重要である．

　In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of arm ergometry exercise tests for the prescription of oxygen therapy in patients with respiratory disease who are unable to be tested by walking exercise. In 19 patients (males, 13; females, 6; age, 78.0±7.4 years) with respiratory disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, 7; bronchial asthma, BA, 4; pneumonia, 4; interstitial pneumonia, IP, 3; and chronic heart failure, CHF, 1), exercise tests with arm ergometry were performed in order to determine the appropriate dose of oxygen for exercise or daily use. The mean oxygen dose from rest to peak exercise was 1.7±1.1 L/min. Heart rate (HR) values at rest and at peak were 84.9±14.4 and 95.1±17.1 beats/min, respectively, while oxygen saturation (SpO₂) decreased from 96.6±3.0％ at rest to 90.5±5.6％ at peak exercise. The mean number of revolutions/min for arm ergometry under the lightest load was 45.9±13.6. While there was no significant correlation between change in HR and revolutions/min (R＝0.061, P＝0.8028), SpO₂ change was found to correlate with revolutions/min (R＝0.619, P＝0.0047). Exercise tests using arm ergometry were conclusively found to have adequate accuracy to determine the appropriate oxygen therapy for respiratory disease patients who are unable to perform walking exercise.