Dear Readers,

This issue of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology includes original research articles, case reports and reports with brief reviews, as well as articles from our special sections Interventional Pediatric Cardiology, Electrophysiology Corner, and Adjunctive Therapy. The first research article, submitted by Dr. Ertan Okmen and colleagues from the Siyami Ersek Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Center in Istanbul, Turkey, presents carefully conducted research comparing the prognostic value of three cardiac markers of myocardial damage after successful PCI. Okmen et al demonstrated that Troponin-I was most sensitive, but that Troponin-T had a reasonably high correlation — with both being predictive of long-term, event-free survival.

In the second original research article, Dr. Seiichi Haruta and colleagues from Fukuyama Cardiovascular Hospital in Hiroshima, Japan, demonstrate their successful use of the guidewire technique for percutaneous transvenous mitral commissurotomy for atrial septal puncture. Haruta and colleagues’ paper is accompanied by a commentary from Drs. Antonio Colombo and Ioannis Iakovou of the Centro Cuore Columbus and San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, Italy.

Next, Dr. Ayse Saatci Yasar and associates from the Turkiye Yuksek Ihtisas Hospital in Ankara and Inonu University Medical Faculty in Malatya, Turkey, present a study which assesses coronary blood flow in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy using the thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) frame count method. They found that corrected TIMI frame count for the LAD was significantly higher in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, whereas no difference was observed in the circumflex or right coronary arteries.

In the next research article, Dr. Lionel Mangin and collaborators from Laval Hospital and Quebec Heart-Lung Institute, report on the analysis of their experience using the transulnar approach for coronary intervention as an alternative to the transradial approach in 122 selected patients. They show that success rates and complication rates are comparable to published reports on the transradial approach.

The final research paper, from Dr. Alexandre Azmus and colleagues of the Institute of Cardiology of Rio Grande do Sul/Fundaçao Universitaria de Cardiologia in Porto Alegre, Brazil, discusses the effectiveness of acetylcysteine for preventing contrast nephropathy.

This issue of the Journal also includes four interesting case reports with brief reviews of the literature. In the first case report with review, Drs. Movahed, Balian and Moraghebi from the University of California Irvine Medical Center, present a unique patient with severe ischemic regurgitation causing reversible cardiogenic shock as a complication of PCI of the circumflex to correct no-reflow. They emphasize the importance of urgent echocardiography to recognize this condition.

Drs. Christopher Wong and Scott Hardin from the Conroe Regional Medical Center in Conroe, Texas, present two patients with bifurcation coronary lesions who were successfully treated using cutting balloons and drug-eluting stents.

The third case report with brief review is by Dr. Hidehiko Honda and colleagues from the Heart Center, Sendai Kosei Hospital in Sendai, Japan, discusses the use of an everolimus-eluting stent with a bioresorbable PLA polymer coating to successfully treat recurrent in-stent restenosis in a 63-year-old female patient.

The last case with review, presented by Dr. Stavros Hadjimiltiades and coworkers from the AHEPA General Hospital, University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, describes the successful rotational ablation of a focally unexpandable sirolimus-eluting Cypher stent due to a coronary constriction ring.

A number of interesting case reports are also featured in this issue. Drs. Baweja, Kamineni and Butman, from the Sarver Heart Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, have submitted an interesting case report describing unexpected adverse effects that occurred remotely from the intended target following coronary brachytherapy.

In the next case report, Drs. Banks, Patterson and Kiemeneij, describe their technique to reduce access site complications using the right radial artery in a patient with acute coronary syndrome due to degeneration of a saphenous vein graft that required treatment with a stent delivered via an 8 Fr guiding catheter.

In the final case report, Dr. Federico Brunelli and colleagues from the Hospital Poliambulanza in Brescia, Italy, describe their treatment using intraoperative stenting of a prosthetic left pulmonary artery stenosis under fluoroscopy of a 7-year-old boy with a complex form of pulmonary atresia, VSD, and major aorto-pulmonary collateral arteries requiring corrective surgery for severe cyanosis.

This issue provides articles from three of our special sections. In the first special section, Adjunctive Therapy, edited by Dr. Deepak Bhatt, Director of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Dr. Umesh Arora from the University of South Florida, provides the second part of his excellent review of direct thrombin inhibitors. In the Electrophysiology Corner, edited by Dr. Todd Cohen of the Department of Cardiology at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, New York, he and his colleagues Drs. Raio, Daggubati and Marzo, report the first known case of acute right coronary artery occlusion following radiofrequency ablation for atrial flutter in a patient without prior coronary artery disease. In the special section, Interventional Pediatric Cardiology, edited by Dr. P. Syamasundar Rao of the University of Texas Houston Medical School, Dr. Stephanie Schwalm and colleagues from the University of Chicago, report a case of post-traumatic muscular VSD in an 18-year-old who had sustained a stab wound in the chest. This was successfully treated with the percutaneous approach using the Amplatzer duct occluder.

Finally, this issue offers a CME article by Craig Lehmann and Mary Hotaling who present a time and motion study using contrast management systems as a way to save time and money in the catheterization laboratory.

It is my hope that all of the articles in this issue of the Journal provide information that is useful for cardiovascular specialists in their daily care of patients with cardiovascular disease.