Original title: Preinfarction Angina Reduces Infarct Size in ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction Treated With Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Reference: Ronald Reiter et al. Circ Cardiovasc Interv. 2013;6:00-00. Ischemic preconditioning (IPC) is a phenomenon whereby transitory ischemia episodes protect the myocardium against a more prolonged episode. Until now, IPC has been the most effective approach to protect the myocardium. Pre infarction...
The development of interventional cardiology has led us to successfully treat injuries and angiographic situations increasingly complex. This goes along that often the length of procedures is increasing automatically leading to increased fluoroscopy time and film images. The result, often unnoticed, is the possibility of the appearance of irradiation injuries in our patients or in...
Original title: Incidence, Management and Outcomes of Cardiac Tamponade During Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation Reference: Ahmed Rezq et al. J Am Coll Cardiol Intv 2012;5:1264 –72 Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) for high risk patients is a valid strategy today but not without complications. Among these is cardiac tamponade, still rare but important because of its implication. There...
Original title: Impact of a New Conduction Defect Alter Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation on Left Ventricular Function Reference: Rainer Hoffmann, et al. J Am Coll Cardiol Intv 2012;5:1257– 63. TAVI development in high risk patients can produce new conduction defects and require a definitive pacemaker in almost a third of treated patients. The aim of this study was...
Original title: Trends in outcome after transfemoral transcatheter aortic valve implantation. Pooled-RotterdAm-Milano-Toulouse In Collaboration Plus (PRAGMATICPlus) initiative. Reference: Nicolas M. Van Mieghem et al. Am Heart J 2012;0:1-10. Article in press. Since its introduction in 2002, Transfemoral Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) has turned into a viable and safe strategy to treat patients with severe acute stenosis and...
Original title: Influence of access site choice on incidence of neurologic complications after percutaneous coronary intervention. Reference: Karim Ratib et al. Am Heart J 2012;0:1-8 Article in press. Neurological complications post coronary angioplasty (PCA) are sporadic but they are associated with eight times increased mortality. A transradial approach has multiple advantages over femoral but could theoretically have a...
Original title: A Prospective Randomized Trial of Trombectomy Versus No Thrombectomy in Patients With ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction and Thrombus-Rich Lesion. MUSTELA (MUltidevice Thrombectomy in Acute ST-Segment ELevation Acute Myocardial Infarction) Trial Reference: Marco De Carlo, et al. J Am Coll Cardiol Intv 2012;5:1223–30 The main objective during primary PCI is myocardial reperfusion, which is limited by distal...
Original title: Reduction in First and Recurrent Cardiovascular Events with Ticagrelor Compared with Clopidogrel in the PLATO Study. Reference: Payal Kohli et al. CIRCULATION AHA.112.124248. In analyzing randomized and monitored study outcomes, we usually observe that after the occurrence of any primary outcome event patients are typically blocked for further analysis. This practice limits the information on subsequent...
Original title: Ambulatory Transradial Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: A Safe, Effective, and Cost-Saving Strategy. Reference: Philippe Le Corvoisier et al. Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions 81:15–23 (2013). The number of PCI procedures has increased and for many interventional cardiology centers PC interventions entail significant resource consumption. Reducing post procedure hospital stay could reduce costs and optimize hospitalization resources. The safety...
The evolution in experience of the operators together with the continuous improvement of devices have allowed new procedures that we did not perform a few years ago and that we never imagined possible, not even for the most enthusiastic of interventional cardiologists. Not a huge intellectual effort is required to say that the future...