Courtesy of Dr. Agustín Vecchia. In the last few years, new percutaneous treatment options for mitral regurgitation have emerged. Transcatheter mitral annuloplasty with various devices is a relatively simple procedure that could compress the origin of circumflex artery branches due to the different orientation of mitral corners and the coronary sinus. The following work by Park...
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...
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...
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...
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Not long ago, atherosclerosis of the common femoral artery used to be treated surgically and, thanks to better training and new balloon devices, we have advanced the endovascular treatment alternative. However, severe calcification continues to be a great limitation. This study aimed at evaluating the feasibility and one year...
Cerebral embolic protection is a strategy to prevent embolization of thrombotic or calcific debris during transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). A number of randomized and controlled studies have tested the safety and efficacy of various devices, though none of them have enough statistical power to show significant differences in end points. While preliminary...
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...
Remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) can prevent recurrent ischemic events in patients with acute or chronic cerebral ischemia. However, is remains unclear whether RIPC could prevent an ischemic event in the context of carotid PCI in patients with severe carotid artery stenosis. The study included patients with severe carotid artery stenosis randomized to RIPC, vs....
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Around 5% of patients undergoing coronary angiography present severe left main coronary artery (LMCA) lesions. Myocardial revascularization surgery (MRS) is the preferred method for this group, although there is evidence from different randomized trials demonstrating the safety and efficacy of unprotected LMCA angioplasty, with results similar to those obtained through the traditional strategy....
The aim of this study was to evaluate the long-term performance of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and surgically-implanted valves through longitudinal echocardiographic follow-up of the PARTNER I trial patients. The study included all patients receiving TAVR or undergoing surgery who had a post-implant echocardiogram at five years analyzed for peak systolic velocity, mean gradient,...