According to this single-site study, published in J Am Coll Cardiol Intv., interventional cardiologists can safely conduct revascularizations in a setting of acute stroke, with high clinical and technical success. Cardiologists are taking on this traditional interventional neurology field simply due to the lack of interventional neurologists, who are thus unable to provide coverage 24/7,...
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Primary coronary angioplasty has been the treatment of choice for acute myocardial infarction (MI) for many years, but such strategy is associated with nonculprit lesions in a large group of patients. While it has been proven that nonculprit-lesion revascularization offers better outcomes, the groups that would benefit from it are...
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. The need for anticoagulation after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is over 15% according to different reports and, so far, no one has analyzed in depth whether new oral anticoagulant agents (non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants [NOACs]) result in superior benefit compared with classic vitamin K antagonists (VKAs). This study analyzed...
For decades, physiologists have known what cardiologists often forget: heart and brain communicate intensely in a healthy person, and in a wide range of cardiovascular diseases they could damage one another. Multiple actions and immediate reactions in the brain adequately adapt heart function to bodily needs, such as anxiety and frustration, which might impair adequate...
PASCAL transcatheter valve repair system for mitral regurgitation has shown feasibility and safety to treat patients with grade 3+ or 4+, regardless etiology. Regurgitation grade was significantly reduced, and this was accompanied by clinical improvement in functional class, exercise capacity and quality of life. This study soon to be published in J Am Coll Cardiol...
The use of percutaneous left appendage closure increased 3.6-fold from 2011 to 2015, but this volume increase did not entail a significant uptrend of in-hospital events in this “real-world” population in Germany. However, can Germany be considered a real-world setting for Latin America? This question is warranted by the fact that there is no apparent...
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in low-risk patients with symptomatic severe aortic stenosis appears to be safe at one year. In a follow-up using computerized tomography (TC), hypoattenuated leaflet thickening was observed in a minority of patients, but it did not have a long-term hemodynamic impact. It should be noted that the management strategy for...
This post hoc analysis of what had been a trial with negative outcomes should be considered only as a hypothesis generator. Patients receiving complex PCI treated with ticagrelor monotherapy after one-month dual antiaggregation therapy (DAPT) showed better results at 2 years when compared against patients receiving a conventional DAPT scheme. In the global analysis, this...
Staged complete revascularization in patients with acute myocardial infarction and multivessel coronary disease is superior to culprit PCI only at five-year follow-up. The outcomes of this retrospective analysis show the benefit of staged PCI, though it might be attenuated in diabetic patients. Outcomes are consistent with previously published randomized studies. Nevertheless, we should remain cautious...
Prior bariatric surgery in a patient with morbid obesity is associated with a significant effect on survival after infarction or stroke. While these are observational data, the significant metabolic improvement experienced after the surgery can explain perfectly such findings. This large nationwide registry of bariatric surgery found a 40% decrease in the risk of death,...