The use of a second 0.014 inch coronary guidewire, along with the one being used to advance balloons or stents inside the coronary arteries during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), sometimes helps to address complex lesions — a method known a…
Recently, a number of clinical studies demonstrated that distal embolization occurs routinely during percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) — not only on saphenous vein grafts, but also on native coronary arteries.1–9 During primary PCI, embolizat…
Accelerated allograft vasculopathy in cardiac transplant recipients occurs commonly five or more years after transplantation and limits patient survival.1,2
Unlike native atherosclerosis, this peculiar vasculopathy has a diffuse pattern of coronary…
Percutaneous coronary intervention has revolutionized the management of coronary artery disease since its inception in 1977. Initial problems with acute vessel closure were largely solved with the advent of stenting.1 Recurrent stenosis and/or occlus…
Drug-eluting stents have ushered in a new era in interventional cardiology with the availability of sirolimus-eluting Cypher™ (Cordis Corp., Miami, Florida) and paclitaxel-eluting Taxus® (Boston Scientific Corp., Natick, Massachusetts) stents which h…
Coronary perforation is a rare but potentially life-threatening complication of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). As an increasing number of complex PCI procedures are undertaken with aggressive anticoagulation and antiplatelet therapy, a hig…
An 84-year-old man underwent percutaneous patent foramen ovale (PFO) closure for repeated attacks of ischemic strokes with unknown origin. The transesophageal echocardiogram performed prior to the intervention showed a small fibrous structure at the…
Dear Readers,
This issue of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology, includes original research articles, commentary and features from our special journal sections. In addition, I encourage you to visit the website edition to read the interesting and…
With aggressive anticoagulation and antiplatelet therapy being used in interventional cardiology, transradial interventions are becoming more popular due to lower bleeding complication rates.1,2 A common situation encountered in transradial catheteri…
Radial artery spasm is frequently associated with transradial coronary access. Incidence varies around 10% and is caused by many factors. Spasm rarely leads to serious complications such as eversion atherectomy,1 but is commonly associated with proce…
