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...

RATIONALE There is growing evidence that obstructive sleep apnea is associated with coronary artery disease. However, there are no data on the course of coronary stenosis after percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with obstructive sleep apnea. OBJECTIVES To determine whether sleep apnea is associated with increased late lumen loss and restenosis after percutaneous coronary intervent...

KEY CLINICAL MESSAGE Retrograde coronary intervention of chronic total coronary occlusion remains challenging. We describe a successful retrograde intervention of chronically occluded right coronary artery ostium via an occluded vein graft. An occluded saphenous vein graft can be a useful means to access the distal coronary bed, enabling delivery of retrograde percutaneous coronary intervention...

Patient with coronary artery disease (CAD) undergoing major noncardiac surgery (NCS) are at increased risk of serious perioperative cardiac complications. At the same time, safety of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) before noncardiac surgery has been questioned. This paper reviews the available literature regarding the safety of PCI before NCS. At the same time, cardiac evaluation befor...

OBJECTIVES This study evaluated the utility and quality-of-life year measurements for patients with coronary artery disease who underwent any of 3 therapeutic strategies with a 5-year follow-up. METHODS Quality-of-life data were obtained from the Medicine, Angioplasty, or Surgery Study II trial. To obtain utilities, the 36-Item Short-Form questionnaire was converted to a 6-Dimensional Health ...

spontaneous coronary artery dissection (scad) is a rare and important cause of acute coronary syndrome and sudden cardiac death. various etiologies are thought to be responsible for this condition, among which underlying atherosclerosis seems to be the most common. scad is predominant in women and is usually diagnosed via coronary artery angiography. therapeutic interventions include medical th...