Courtesy of del Dr. Carlos Fava. The bicuspid aortic valve is highly anatomically challenging because of valve asymmetric calcification, increased annulus diameter, raphe calcification and ascending aorta dilation. The new valves have shown to improve results, but we still lack data on this group. 301 patients presenting bicuspid aortic valve undergoing transcatheter aortic...
Courtesy of Dr. Agustín Vecchia. Currently, the duration of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after stent placement is one of the most highly debated topics in Cardiology. On the one hand, women are usually underrepresented in trials in our specialty; on the other, the fact that symptoms of coronary disease are different in women is well-known. The aim...
Andexanet alfa induces rapid reversion of Xa inhibitor effect in patients with active major bleeding, according to preliminary observations of the ongoing study ANNEXA-4, currently randomizing patients. This work was presented in Rome in the context of the European Society of Cardiology annual meeting, and simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine....
Patients treated with A9 biolimus eluting stent with biodegradable polymer (Nobori, Terumo) can receive only six months of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) with no increase in adverse events, compared against more prolonged treatments. The net adverse clinical and cerebrovascular events that included all cause death, MI, cerebrovascular events and major bleeding was: 1.92% for...
The choice of prasugrel or ticagrelor for patients with acute myocardial infarction undergoing primary angioplasty makes no difference, at least in the short term. This study was terminated prematurely and thus lost statistical power, which means that any interpretation of the lack of difference between the two antiplatelet drugs must take into account such...
Courtesy of Dr. Guillermo Migliaro. Coronary perforation (CP) is a rare but serious complication of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with an estimated incidence of 0.5%. Arterial blood entering the pericardium may cause a rapid elevation of intrapericardial pressure and collapse the right cavities (tamponade) creating hemodynamic compromise. Historically, surgical drainage has been the...
The aim of this study was to compare clinical outcomes in relation to the duration of triple antithrombotic therapy in patients with indications for oral anticoagulation undergoing coronary angioplasty. The optimal period for the prescription of these three drugs has not been studied. Between 2009 and 2013, 8772 consecutive patients undergoing coronary angioplasty were included...
Ticagrelor might be a more effective antiplatelet therapy than aspirin for the prevention of recurrent stroke and cardiovascular events in patients admitted for acute cerebral ischemia. This double-blind, controlled trial randomized 13,199 patients from 33 countries. Subjects presented a non-severe stroke or a high-risk transient ischemic attack (TIA) (not considered as cardioembolic) and had not received...
Courtesy of Dr. Santiago F. Coroleu. Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) with aspirin and clopidogrel after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) reduces the risk for coronary thrombotic events (CTEs) at the expense of increasing risk for major bleeding (MB). However, the lack of information to accurately predict the occurrence of each event in out-of-hospital patients under...
Courtesy of Dr. Guillermo Migliaro. Post PCI major bleeding has been associated with short term mortality in acute coronary syndromes (ACS). Even though studies have shown the transradial approach is safer than the femoral, especially in high risk subgroups ─ mainly STEMI patients ─ the femoral access site continues to be widely used. ...