Drug-eluting balloons have demonstrated safety and effectiveness in the treatment of small-vessel coronary artery disease and in-stent restenosis. However, randomized studies were performed using paclitaxel. Several studies have shown that using biolimus, a semisynthetic analog of sirolimus, optimizes drug delivery in both stents and balloons. The aim of this randomized, multicenter study was to evaluate...
CRUNCH Registry: An Option for Underexpanded Stents
Coronary calcification hinders both stent transfer and implantation, and has been associated with a higher risk of complications. Coronary perforation is the worst of them. In turn, these calcifications affect the preparation of coronary plaque, resulting in an underexpanded stent (US), which is a strong predictor of restenosis and early thrombosis. For the management of...
Should We Start Stenting with DES in Femoropopliteal Territory?
Percutaneous intervention of femoropopliteal lesions have been the standard strategy these past two decades. The development of drug eluting stents (DES) or drug eluting balloons (DEB) has improved patency rate compared against conventional balloon angioplasty. The ILLUMINA -a multicenter study- looked into the polymer free self-expanding stent NiTiDES, which showed at 1 year an 87%...
STEMI: Can We Omit Stenting?
The recommended treatment for ST elevation acute myocardial infarction (STEMI) is early PCI, typically stenting. However, stent implantation always involves the risk of intravascular complications, such as stent thrombosis or restenosis. Sometimes stable flow is restored to the target vessel after initial PCI and we can omit stenting when there is no angiographically significant residual...
IVUS in Femoropopliteal PCI: Should We Start Using It?
For approximately two decades now, PCI has been the treatment of choice in femoropopliteal territory, and even though technological developments and increasing operator experience have indeed improved outcomes, IVUS (which has showed great benefits in PCI, even reducing left main mortality) is hardly used in this territory. This was a prospective randomized controlled study including...
The Most Read Articles in Interventional Cardiology in October
01- ISCHEMIA: Prognosis is Determined by Anatomy, not Functionality The ISCHEMIA study keeps providing scientific news. This work in patients with stable coronary artery disease had already shown (to our surprise) that ischemic burden does not predict 4-year mortality. Read also HERE 02- Chile Sessions 2021 | Clinical Case Contest for Young Interventionists It is with great...
Drug-Eluting Balloons Find Their Niche
According to this large European registry, drug-eluting balloons (DEBs) are competing with drug-eluting stents (DES) to treat in-stent restenosis. Drug-eluting balloons seem to work equally well for the treatment of long-term in-stent restenosis compared with new stent implantation (for the thin-strut DES registry). If DEBs can compete with DES—adding to the advantage of avoiding a...
One Year of Successful Carotid Artery Stenting with the CGuard Device
This registry of daily clinical practice suggests that this specifically designed double-mesh carotid stent is safe and associated with a minimal and acceptable occurrence of neurological events up to 12 months of follow-up. This double-mesh stent has already been tested, and its short- and long-term efficacy has been proven. However, more recent data have challenged the...
ACC 2021 | SAFE-PAD: Paclitaxel-Eluting Devices in Peripheral Disease
This work was conducted alongside the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate the association between all-cause mortality and paclitaxel-eluting devices in peripheral vascular disease. According to data from SAFE-PAD, presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) 2021 Congress and simultaneously published in JAMA, there is no increase in mortality compared with conventional...
Intravascular Imaging: A Universal Approach for Angioplasty Optimization
Despite robust information supporting the use of intravascular imaging during coronary angioplasty, its use in clinical practice remains low. This paper proposes using an algorithm for decision-making throughout the procedure to promote increased intravascular imaging use. Regardless of the many technologies that have been incorporated into strut design struts and polymer type, the rate of...