Courtesy of Dr. Carlos Fava. The presence of CTO hovers around 15, 20% in coronary angiographies of patients with chronic stable angina, but only 5% receive percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). One of the obstacles to percutaneous revascularization is the lack of relevant studies justifying it, though we do have different comparative studies that improve symptoms, ventricular...
The index of microcirculatory resistance might guide therapy and controlled intermittent coronary sinus occlusions, improve microvascular function, and reduce infarct size. This study included patients with prior ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction treated with primary angioplasty. Researchers measured the index of microcirculatory resistance before stenting and intermittent coronary sinus occlusion was used if the result was...
The LEADERS FREE study showed that a biolimus A9-coated polymer-free stent was superior to a conventional stent in terms of safety and efficacy in patients who received dual antiplatelet therapy for only a month due to their high risk for bleeding. In this substudy, researchers analyzed 667 patients enrolled in the original LEADERS FREE trial who met certain requirements...
The left distal radial artery has been recently proposed as an alternative in selected patients with high success rate and low complications rate. This study evaluated the feasibility and safety of this puncture both for coronary angiography and angioplasty. It included 200 consecutive patients with palpable left distal radial artery punctured by three expert operators....
Recent studies in patients undergoing acute myocardial infarction showed that a complete revascularization strategy in an acute or subacute setting, whether it be guided through angiography (PRAMI, CvLPRIT) or fractional flow reserve (FFR) (PRIMULTI, COMPARE-ACUTE), improves the combined endpoint of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) when compared with treatment of the culprit artery only. Based...
Several studies are defining the role of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in patients with low surgical risk. One of the main concerns for this population, whose life expectancy is much longer, has to do with TAVR durability compared with a surgically-implanted biological valves. The Nordic Aortic Valve Intervention (NOTION) trial was the first study...
Pooled data from the most important recently published studies (FAME 2, Compare-Acute, and DANAMI3-PRIMULTI) conclude that there is a significant difference in favor of fractional flow reserve (FFR) as regards hard endpoints. Coronary revascularization guided by FFR reduces the risk of death and infarction when compared with optimal medical treatment in patients with stable and...
After a 5-year follow-up, and for the first time, functional assessment with fractional flow reserve (FFR) showed clear benefit for a hard endpoint: acute myocardial infarction. Use of FFR in patients with stable coronary artery disease so as to identify hemodynamically significant lesions in order to restrict angioplasty treatment to them has long-term benefits compared...
The SCAAR registry aimed at showing the differences in mortality at very long term when using functional assessment of coronary lesions (with FFR or iFR) in patients with chronic stable angina. The study compared 3460 patients assessed with FFR/iFR against 21221 patients undergoing PCI based on angiography, between January 2005 and March 2015. As...
Elective, uncomplicated repeat revascularization after stent restenosis is associated with higher mortality rates according to a new meta-analysis that will be published soon in J Am Coll Cardiol Intrv. Historically, interventional cardiologists have seen target lesion revascularization (TLR) as a procedure that “unjustly” increased combined events in clinical studies and our own databases, thus representing...