Intracoronary ECG was invented in 1974 and in 1985 it was shown for the first time that intracoronary wire could be used as an ECG unipolar lead to detect ongoing ischemia in humans. Intracoronary ECG still remains highly underused technique for guiding percutaneous coronary interventions. This article summarizes studies dating from 1974 through 2016 showing intracoronary ECG usefulness in find...

Recently, percutaneous coronary intervention has been the treatment of choice in most acute myocardial infarction cases. Although the results of percutaneous coronary interventions have ben good, the no-reflow phenomenon and distal embolization of intracoronary thrombus are still major problems even after successful interventions. In this article, we will briefly review the deleterious effects ...

INTRODUCTION A number of studies reported on a possible increased risk of morbidity and mortality after coronary artery bypass grafting in patients with prior percutaneous coronary intervention. METHODS A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies comparing the outcome of patients undergoing coronary surgery with or without prior percutaneous coronary intervention was performed. Only stud...

Blood transfusions are a relatively common occurrence after performing any percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Although guidelines for blood transfusion have been previously specified, retrospective analysis of transfusion practices have suggested that these guidelines are rarely applied. We describe a model for the application of a continuous quality improvement program including benchma...

A recent study assessing views of interventional cardiologists on the performance of catheters used in angioplasty, also known as percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), indicates that there is a need for improvement in the catheter. The particular areas of improvement are reviewed here with some hypotube shaft solutions that promise to improve catheter deliverability.

Longer door-to-balloon times, total duration of ischaemia, and time of presentation relative to symptom onset all have an impact on outcome following primary percutaneous coronary intervention.

BACKGROUND Registry studies have suggested improvements in door-to-balloon times, but a national assessment of the trends in door-to-balloon times is lacking. Moreover, we do not know whether improvements in door-to-balloon times were shared equally among patient and hospital groups. METHODS AND RESULTS This analysis includes all patients reported by hospitals to the Centers for Medicare & Me...

BACKGROUND In 2001, 1176 US hospitals were capable of performing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and 79% of the population lived within 60-minute ground transport of these hospitals. We compared these estimates with data from 2006 to explore how hospital PCI capability and population access have changed over time. METHODS AND RESULTS We estimated the proportion of the popula...

Emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) is an acute necrotizing and suppurative infection of the kidney parenchyma. It is defined by the presence of gas within the kidney parenchyma and surrounding tissues. This rare condition is usually seen in diabetic or immunocompromised adults. In this paper, we report four cases of emphysematous pyelonephritis (including two diabetic patients) managed by broad...