The widespread popularity of drug-eluting stents (DES) had a dramatic impact on the modern interventional therapy of coronary artery disease; accordingly, the cardiac surgical volume has experienced a corresponding decrease. Like the introduction of bare-metal stents (BMS) during the balloon angioplasty era, DES represent yet another quantum advancement towards overcoming the challenges of restenosis. The promises of this potential panacea, however, have been recently attenuated by the looming specter of late angiographic stent thrombosis (LAST). The usual time frame for stent thrombosis is

The aorto-ostial junction has high elastic fiber content with significant elastic recoil.^1-7 Ostial left main coronary artery (LMCA) stenoses have larger lumen areas with less plaque burden and more negative remodeling than non-ostial LMCA stenoses. Most ostial LMCA stenoses have been categorized as eccentric and less calcified.⁸ The RCA ostium shows a lack of arterial distensibility and excessive rigidity, presumably because it contains highly elastic rigid tissue.^1,7 Both the LMCA and RCA ostia may have similar morphologic characteristics. However, there i

There is extensive literature demonstrating a disturbingly higher mortality rate, intraprocedural coronary artery injury rate and periprocedural vascular complication rate in women versus men. The disparity has been partially explained by more comorbid disease, older age, smaller size and higher prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, peripheral vascular disease and more severe angina at presentation. Furthermore, it has been suggested that smaller vessel diameters associated with smaller body size have been a driving force for the observed higher rates of both coronary and entry-site vascula