Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. Bifurcation lesions account for about 25% of all angioplasties and it is a challenge for which there is no single treatment strategy. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) has proven its usefulness, improving outcomes by reducing mortality in unprotected left main coronary artery (LMCA) angioplasty. A new strategy consists in conducting an IVUS after...
The outcomes of this work are important to plan valve replacement with the largest possible prosthesis allowed by patient anatomy in the index procedure. As a worldwide trend, increasingly more patients are receiving bioprostheses, which have improved a lot but still tend to become deteriorated and require a valve-in-valve procedure if the patient is no...
Despite the use of the different imaging approaches to calculating implantation depth, optimal depth is reached only 30% of the time. Multiple imaging does not offer a uniform perspective and therefore influence reporting. Basically, we do not have a clear idea of what constitutes optimal depth on a case by case basis and, what is...
Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. The risk of repeat surgical mitral valve repair involves 6% to15% mortality at 30 days, even close to 20% in acute cases. However, mortality can rise to over 40% when it comes to a third or fourth surgical intervention. One of the solutions to this serious problem is transcatheter mitral...
Courtesy of the SBHCI. The 2-year results of the PARTNER 2A trial showed that transcatheter aortic valve implantation has a result similar to that of surgery in patients with aortic stenosis and intermediate surgical risk. We lacked long-term data, both clinical and related to prosthesis function. Now, at TCT 2019, researchers presented the 5-year data for this...
1- What to Do with Blood Pressure Levels Between 130/80 and 139/89 mmHg The decision to be made with a treatment-free patient with systolic blood pressure over 160 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure over 100 mmHg is an easy one. All guidelines agree: treatment should be started immediately alongside lifestyle changes. Read also HERE 2- Low-Risk...
Escalation or de-escalation of antianginal medication was less common than treatment continuation without change after a chronic total occlusion rechanneling, with little variation according to the site. Further research is needed to identify patients who would benefit (or not) from these drugs and to develop strategies to adjust treatment during follow-up. This work basically tells...
Evidently, we are still uncertain. The information goes both ways, even on our own web page, we have been coming and going just like any other publication around the world. After a 2-day debate, the Circulatory System Devices FDA panel has confirmed the tendency to higher mortality with paclitaxel-based devices and is expected to debate...
Traditionally, we have used age, gender, obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, smoking, and diabetes as cardiovascular risk factors. However, this new era (during which the changes made to care for our shared home, the planet, will play a key role) has seen the emergence of new factors such as pollution, noise, temperature, sleep hours, and air quality....