Complex angioplasties require not only experience and patience but also technology. Imaging–guided pre-dilation, stent sizing, and post-dilation reduced the cardiovascular events after a 3-year follow-up in patients who received drug-eluting stents in complex angioplasties. This paper, recently published in JACC Interventions, compared the 3-year outcome of the complex angioplasty optimization technique with intravascular imaging to...
Early Activation to Speed-Up Treatment of Infarcted Patients
Cath lab activation—and everything that entails—within 20 minutes was associated with the target of performing primary angioplasty in under 2 hours in at least 75% of patients. Historically, door-to-balloon time was measured, which provided a rough idea of where there could be flaws to fix. This is particularly true in the case of patients who need to...
Is Medical Treatment Better at Lowering Bleeding-Caused Mortality than Angioplasty?
Post-discharge bleeding in patients admitted for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is linked to higher all-cause mortality. However, this is the case for both patients who underwent angioplasty and those who were managed with medical treatment. These are interesting data, given that medical treatment is frequently preferred due to lower bleeding risk. Speculation is based on...
How to Determine Optimal Balloon Size in Below-the-Knee Angioplasty
Unlike the coronary and femoral arteries, calcification of medial layers in infrapatellar arteries prevents positive remodeling and expansion capacity to maintain vessel lumen. Long term patency of endovascular treatment is suboptimal despite the coated balloons, atherectomy devices and stents. Standard angiographies only show vessel lumen far from its real dimension given the severe thickening of...
Ideal Area for Unprotected Left Main PCI
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Unprotected left main PCI (PCI-UPLMS) is an acceptable and comparable strategy vs CABG, although the use of IVUS is advisable, since it has shown better evolution and mortality. However, the adequate stent expansion remains unclear. Researchers carried out a sub-analyzis of the NOBLE trial. Of the total 603 patients receiving...
Differences in Plaque Progression Depending on its Characteristics
The pattern of growth for each plaque differs according to the presence of certain risk factors. Atheroma volume at baseline was the most important predictor of plaque developing into obstructive lesions, as opposed to other characteristics historically considered as “dangerous.” The aim of this study was to analyze whether the pattern of non-obstructive lesion progression...
Is the Use of iFR for the Deferral of Left Main Coronary Artery Lesions Safe?
Deferral of left main coronary artery lesions using instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR) seems to be safe. At the least, patients with deferred lesions had similar long-term prognosis to that of patients who underwent revascularization based on that same indicator. Left main coronary artery lesions were universally excluded from studies including medical treatment among the therapeutic...
Webinar SOLACI | Left Main Coronary Artery PCI 360°: Clinical Case, Technique and Evidence
Check out our Webinar on “Left Main Coronary Artery PCI 360°: Clinical Case, Technique and Evidence” on our Youtube account. The event was promoted by the areas of ProEducar, SOLACI Research and SOLACI Sessions, and included the participation of prominent Latin American interventionists. In addition, a complex clinical case was presented on Left Main PCI...
SOLACI Webinar – 18/06- Left Main Coronary Artery PCI 360: Clinical Case, Technique and Evidence
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Antiaggregation vs. Anticoagulation after Peripheral PCI
The truth is this question has no clear answer and what with do with peripheral stenting is transfer the evidence we have on coronary stenting, given the lack of standards and poor reporting on antithrombotic therapy outcomes in randomized studies on endovascular intervention. Heterogeneity is worse when it comes to venous territory. Some time ago...