The ambitious SOLVE-TAVI (soon to be published in JACC) is aimed at answering to of the most important questions we make when facing a TAVR procedure: What valve do we choose, a self-expanding or a balloon expandable? And once we have chosen our device, do we proceed with general anesthesia or conscious sedation? The...
[APT Medical Sponsored Clinical Case] Bilateral Distal Transradial Access for Chronic Total Occlusion Recanalization and Multivessel Coronary Disease Percutaneous Intervention
Introduction Chronic total occlusion (CTO) represents the most challenging setting for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and multivessel coronary disease (MCD) is often treated in a staggered manner and in a deferred procedure. Although transfemoral is one of the common access site, the transradial access (TRA) has been used with similar procedural success [1]. The distal...
Back to Basics: Ticagrelor Questioned and Clopidogrel in the Limelight
Yet another observational study has come to question the antiaggregation power of ticagrelor when it comes to death or MI reduction, pointing at its higher risk of bleeding vs. clopidogrel. This new analysis recently published in JAHA includes a large number of patients undergoing acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in the clinical practice. Ticagrelor has been...
Xience Receives CE Mark for Short and Ultrashort DAPT Schemes
Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) one month after angioplasty with Xience stent was approved in Europe for patients with high risk of bleeding. The CE Mark approval comes after studies Xience 28 and Xience 90 are published. Immediately after authorization, Abbot was fast to announce what they consider to be the shortest approved scheme with the most...
Thrombocytopenia and Thrombosis May Be Linked to AstraZeneca Vaccine, Analysis Reports
This is one of the first papers documenting rare thrombotic effects related to the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine in Austria and Germany. These effects may be a type of thrombocytopenia after inoculation with the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca. This paper, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), has received plenty...
The Future of Prevention? Stenting Vulnerable Fractional FFR Negative Lesions
For many patients, the first symptom of heart disease is acute MI, or even sudden death. Changes in lifestyle and optimal medical treatment (OMT) are vital to the prevention of serious events, but we cannot help wondering whether preventive stenting might do it. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), optical coherence tomography (OCT), NIRS near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and computed...
Silent Stroke During TAVR and Early Cognitive Impairment
Silent stroke is common after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Co-morbidities such as diabetes or chronic renal failure, as well as procedural factors such as pre-dilation, increase the risk of silent stroke. While many events of silent stroke have an early effect on cognition, it is necessary to learn whether the impairment is sustained over...
SOLACI Sessions Changes Authorities
Dr. Gustavo Vignolo (Uruguay) has taken office as SOLACI Sessions Director after the successful administration of Doctor Mario Araya (Chile) in charge from 2017 to 2020. Doctor Vignolo is specialized in intensive care and cardiology. He was trained in interventional cardiology at the Clinical Hospital and the American Cardiological Center of Montevideo, Uruguay. At present,...
Impact of FFR After Stenting: Useful or Mere Fun Fact?
Suboptimal fractional flow reserve (FFR) results after stenting only have a moderate impact on clinical hard points but might predict a much higher risk of reintervention. FFR has shown a huge impact on the decision-making process when it comes to revascularizing (or not) a lesion. Its impact after angioplasty has not been fully studied, particularly...
The Most Read Articles in Interventional Cardiology of March
01- Surgeons’ Claim on Low-Risk Patients with Aortic Stenosis Recent randomized trials including low-risk patients showed positive results for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) compared with surgical aortic valve replacement. Read more HERE 02- Major Cause of Myocardial Injury by COVID-19 The most common cause of myocardial necrosis in patient undergoing COVID-19 infection is microthrombi. These...