Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after PCI with DES has shown noticeable reduction of thrombotic events, especially in acute coronary syndromes (ACS). However, this therapy encompasses increased bleeding, especially in elderly patients increasingly undergoing percutaneous intervention. Even though most bleeding events might not be fatal (many of them are mostly digestive) they do involve higher hospitalization…
Abbreviated DAPT in ACS: The End of Clopidogrel Monotherapy?
Compared with patients with chronic coronary syndromes, patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) are more likely to suffer from long term major adverse cardiac events (MACE). To prevent this, both the American and the European guidelines recommend prolonging dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) in this population for at least 12 months. However, in patients with certain clinical…
Zwolle Score: Can a Risk Score Decide Where STEACS Patients Should Stay?
The mortality of ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes (STEACS) has decreased thanks to improved reperfusion times (fibrinolysis or primary angioplasty), so that, in daily practice, there is a greater number of patients with stable acute myocardial infarction (AMI). This clinical stability and a low rate of complications raise the question of whether performing triage is…
Is Epinephrine Superior to Adenosine in No-REFLOW?
In patients with acute coronary syndrome, no-reflow prevalence is 32%. Different drugs—such as adenosine, verapamil, nitroprusside, or nicardipine— have been used for its intracoronary treatment, thus resulting in arterial hypotension. The aim of this randomized study was to determine the effectiveness of the use of intracoronary epinephrine vs. adenosine in normotensive patients. The primary endpoint…
Acute Coronary Syndrome: What Is Safer, Antiaggregant Monotherapy or De-Escalation?
For several years it has been shown that 12-month dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) is mandatory for patients undergoing left main PCI for acute coronary syndrome (ACS). However, though this strategy does reduce thrombotic events and mortality, it also causes undesirable bleeding events followed by hospitalization and antiaggregation interruption for a period of time. A feasible…
IVUS in Acute Coronary Syndrome: A New Requirement?
The use of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) has seen exponential growth across registries over the years, combined with mounting and increasingly robust evidence. The fact that it will enable us to characterize plaque morphology and extension prior the intervention, and even assess stent expansion post intervention, has turned it into a pillar of our efforts to…
Bypass Grafting and Native Coronary Artery Disease Activity
Positron emission tomography (PET) with F sodium fluoride (F-NaF) allows for the assessment of microcalcification activity (MA) in a wide variety of cardiovascular conditions, including atherosclerosis. In coronary artery disease, this tracer correlates with progressive disease and allows for the prediction of atherosclerosis progression. Unlike PETs, computed tomography (CT) allows for the evaluation of an…
Cangrelor: Additional Research Findings Not Translating into Clinical Practice
The potent and fast endovenous platelet inhibition provided by Cangrelor reduces ischemic events early in the course of acute coronary syndrome. However, and despite mounting evidence, the drug is not reaching the clinical practice. This is a sub-analysis of the CHAMPION PHOENIX, which sought the timing, number and type of early events that could be…
TICO: Age Impacts the Effect of Antiplatelet Monotherapy
The higher the age, the greater the benefit of ticagrelor monotherapy vs. dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) in patients with acute coronary syndrome. This post hoc sub-analysis of the TICO study goes along the same lines as the TWILIGHT study (which we recently discussed), given that age is the most common reason for considering that a…
AHA 2021 | RAPID CABG: Safety of Early Surgical Intervention in Acute Coronary Syndrome
Suspending ticagrelor a couple of days before surgery was non-inferior to waiting 5-6 days in terms of bleeding in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) requiring myocardial revascularization surgery. Patients who waited longer had more ischemic events and longer hospitalizations. Current American guidelines recommend waiting at least 5 days before operating on patients with ACS who…
TCT 2021 | iFR-SWEDEHEART: 5 Years to Trust FFR Is Equivalent to iFR
The 5-year followup of the iFR-SWEDEHEART has confirmed the safety and efficacy of using either FFR or iFR to guide PCI in intermediate lesions. The iFR-SWEDEHEART initial outcomes together with the DEFINE-FLAIR outcomes had started the debate around these two measuring strategies. The FFR requires adenosine, which results costly in addition to causing adverse events,…