Subclinical atrial fibrillation (AF), generally asymptomatic and of short duration, often requires continuous long-term monitoring using pacemakers or defibrillators for its detection. While subclinical AF is linked to an increased risk of stroke, the usefulness of oral anticoagulation as a treatment remains uncertain. In a double-blind randomized trial, one group received apixaban and the other...
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in elderly adults (individuals aged 75 years or older). In turn, coronary heart disease is one of the main causes of morbidity in this population. In addition to anatomical complexities, there are other factors that may complicate its management, such as polypharmacy, frailty, and procedure-related risks. All of...
Lesions in the left main coronary artery (LMCA) continue to pose a significant challenge. The use of coronary imaging before percutaneous coronary implantation (PCI) has proven useful in analyzing the lesion, identifying the presence and location of calcification, and determining lesion length in the LMCA, the left anterior descending artery, and the circumflex artery. Various...
Approximately 20% of all percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) are performed on bifurcation lesions, which continue to pose a challenge in terms of strategy: how many stents to use, what is the most suitable strategy, and when to transition from a single stent to two during the procedure. Additionally, the use of two stents in these...
Prosthesis-patient mismatch (PPM) occurs when the effective orifice area (EOA) after valve placement is significantly smaller compared with the patient’s body surface area (BSA), resulting in an increased transprosthetic residual gradient. The presence of PPM, especially in various surgical series, has been associated with long-term adverse clinical events. In relation to transcatheter aortic valve implantation...
Endovascular treatment of lesions in femoropopliteal territory (FPA) has become the main therapeutic option, seeing as it is less invasive and has faster recovery. It has used different devices, such as conventional bare metal stents (BMS), balloon angioplasty (POBA), and drug coated balloons (DCB), as well as drug eluting stents (DES). However, real world data...
Left main lesions in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) represent a major risk and, at present, the best revascularization strategy is a matter of debate. Though many studies and registries have excluded this group of patients, there is data on the pros and cons of both percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and cardiac artery bypass graft (CABG). ...
Among patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), there is a need for risk stratification for successful planning and post procedural management. Risk stratification is paramount for effective decision making. For a long time, the SYNTAX score has been the preferred tool for complex PCI patient risk assessment. However, it has important limitations, such as inter-observer...
The optimal treatment of true bifurcation lesions not affecting the left main coronary artery is widely debated. Results from randomized studies have shown neutral or worse outcomes with the two-stent technique. Regarding these studies, researchers used first-generation stents and the secondary branches were small. The EBC TWO study compared the provisional stenting strategy against the...
Studies and registries assessing sex differences in chronic total occlusions (CTO) are limited and women are under-represented, accounting for only 14%-21% of included patients. Even though success rate is comparable between sexes, several studies have shown higher complications rate among women. The aim of this study was to identify sex related baseline and procedural differences,...