Objective: To compare in a randomised trial the procedural and clinical outcome and long term patency of conventional angioplasty with optional stent implantation versus direct stenting without predilatation. Methods: Patients undergoing coronary intervention for symptomatic coronary artery disease were randomly assigned to conventional angioplasty with optional stenting or to direct stent impl...

Tracheal research covers two main areas of interest: tracheal reconstruction and tracheal fixation. Tracheal reconstructions are aimed at rearranging or replacing parts of the tracheal tissue using implantation and transplantation techniques. The indications for tracheal reconstruction are numerous: obstructing tracheal tumors, trauma, post-intubation tissue reactions, etc. Although in the past...

The elaborate branching pattern of the Drosophila tracheal system originates from ten tracheal placodes on both sides of the embryo, each consisting of about 80 cells. Simultaneous cell migration from each tracheal pit in six different directions gives rise to the stereotyped branching pattern. Each branch contains a fixed number of cells. Previous work has shown that in the dorsoventral axis, ...

Tracheal transplantation remains a challenge for General Thoracic Surgery. A large number of surgical techniques and implantable devices has been tested with poor results. In spite of that, some recent findings on tracheal revascularization and graft epithelial replacement have renewed the interest on tracheal transplantation, with special attention to graft bioengineering. However, in order to...

We report a case of tracheal rupture in an 84-yr-old patient after tracheal intubation. The aetiology and treatment are discussed and the recent literature is reviewed.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Direct coronary stenting yields immediate long-term clinical results similar to those obtained with balloon predilation, with the advantage of lower costs and procedural times. Until now, direct stenting has been attempted only for selected lesions, so that the potential scope of its use in everyday practice remains unknown. The DISCO 2 trial was designed to identify...

BACKGROUND Carotid artery stenting has recently been recommended as an alternative to carotid endarterectomy by some clinicians. OBJECTIVE To evaluate success rate, as well as in-hospital and 30-day adverse events in our first experience in Iran for carotid artery stenting with protection devices. METHODS From December 2003 through July 2004, we performed 12 consecutive (9 males and 3 femal...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We investigated predictors for acute and persisting periprocedural ischemic brain lesions among patients with symptomatic carotid stenosis randomized to stenting or endarterectomy in the International Carotid Stenting Study. METHODS We assessed acute lesions on diffusion-weighted imaging 1 to 3 days after treatment in 124 stenting and 107 endarterectomy patients and les...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty combined with vascular stenting is currently being assessed in the treatment of patients with symptomatic, severe carotid stenosis. The immediate cerebral hemodynamic effects resulting from stenting are not fully understood. This article describes a novel finding: abnormal leptomeningeal enhancement after stenting shown by MRI. METH...