The transradial approach is being increasingly adopted as preferred access site, since it is more comfortable for patients, reduces vascular and bleeding complications, is cost effective and reduces mortality in high risk patients. This has created concern about the fact that operators and institutions could become unfamiliar with the transfemoral approach. The aim of…
Why We Should Use IVUS in Complex Coronary Lesions
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Drug eluting stents (DES) have shown benefits in terms of restenosis vs. conventional bare metal stents (BMS). Many of the advantages of DES depend on correct implantation, especially in complex lesions. In complex lesions, the use of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) provides important information on lesion length, vessel diameter, calcification…
Best Revascularization Strategy for Severe Carotid and Coronary Artery Disease
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Carotid artery disease is an important cause of stroke and is associated to coronary artery disease. When patients need myocardial revascularization surgery (Carotid Artery Bypass Graft) and cannot wait one month or more for carotid revascularization, the optimal management strategy is still controversial. The aim of this study was…
Incomplete Revascularization: Increased Events Rate in Non-Cardiac Surgery?
The aim of this study was to determine whether incomplete revascularization is associated to higher adverse events risk and acute myocardial infarction in patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery. Coronary artery disease patients or patients with prior PCI often have non cardiac surgery. These patients may have had all obstructions treated before surgery (complete revascularization) or…
Is it possible to reduce PCI costs without compromising safety?
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Health system costs have increased significantly and there have been attempts to reduce it without compromising the quality of PCI outcomes. The benefits of the transradial approach combined with same day discharge could help reach this goal. This study included 279,987 MEDICARE PCI procedures where costs were analyzed. Cases…
Zotarolimus with Durable Polymer vs. Biolimus with Biodegradable Polymer
The present work compared the safety and efficacy of the permanent polymer zotarolimus eluting stent vs. the biodegradable polymer biolimus eluting stent in unselected coronary artery disease patients. The biodegradable polymer biolimus eluting stent resulted superior to the first generation durable polymer stent in long term randomized studies. However, little evidence supports this superiority…
RESOLUTE Global: 5 Years of Zotarolimus DES Stenting
This study assessed the cumulative incidence of cardiovascular evens after zotarolimus eluting stent implantation. Individual studies often lack enough statistical power to show differences in low frequency adverse events. The Resolute zotarolimus eluting stent was evaluated across 10 prospective clinical trials designed with identical adverse events definitions. The Global Resolute clinical trial program…
Is The Transradial Approach Useful in CTO?
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. The transradial approach has been advanced in time, and is being increasingly used in more and more complex angioplasty procedures with the same benefit, compared to the classical femoral approach. As a result, in many high volume centers, this reality has demoted the femoral approach to a few particular procedures.…
Double Kissing Crush vs. Provisional Stenting at 5 Years
Courtesy of Dr. Guillermo Migliaro. The Provisional Stenting technique (PS) consists of sequentially placing a stent in the main branch of the bifurcation and, only when faced with a suboptimal outcome (such as < 3 TIMI flow, flow limiting dissection or high residual stenosis), a second stent in the side branch. Several studies have shown…
New Generation of DES already being tested, so far safe
This study evaluated the safety and efficacy of the new drug eluting stents (Medtronic, Santa Rosa, California) to treat de novo coronary lesions. These new polymer free drug filled stents have the potential to improve clinical outcomes and allow a shorter dual antiplatelet therapy. In addition, they have been made with three layers of continuous…
The ReACT Study: Is Angiographic Follow-Up Necessary?
The purpose of this study was to assess the long-term clinical impact of routine angiographic follow-up after coronary angioplasty. Routine angiographic follow-up has been criticized by both clinical and interventional cardiologists for increasing the rate of coronary revascularization due to the “oculostenotic reflex.” This caused a shift in the paradigm for clinical studies, and…