CLINICAL SCIENCES Stenting of Coronary Bifurcation Lesions: Case Series

Methods. The prospective study included 36 patients with coronary artery bifurcation lesion treated with stenting between January 1999 and December 2001 at the Institute for Heart Disease, Skopje University Center. There were 23 men and 13 women, with a mean age of 62.5±12.3 years. Seventeen patients had acute myocardial infarction and 19 patients had unstable angina. The follow-up lasted 6 months. The strategy of systematic coronary stenting in the bifurcation lesions involving a side branch of >2.2 mm in diameter was prospectively evaluated according to the quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) measurements. Procedural success was defined as a residual stenosis of less than 20%. Major cardiac events included deaths, emergency coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), Q-wave myocardial infarction, acute and subacute closure, repeated percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), and non-Q myocardial infarction.