Preliminary results of clinical studies suggest that transmyocardial laser revascularization is an effective treatment for patients with chronic angina that cannot be treated by other means. The mechanism of this effect remains controversial. We present autopsy results from a patient obtained 4 1/2 weeks after operation that show that the channels do not maintain patency. Further work is needed...

Laser Revascularization To the Editor: I read with interest the report of Iskandrian et al.1 The authors described a case of improvement of perfusion in the right coronary artery territories (after transmyocardial revascularization), as well as in the territory of the left anterior descending artery and the circumflex artery (after CABG surgery). I’d like to ask the authors why they were sure t...

Conventional treatment of coronary artery disease consists of either Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG), medical therapy or percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) or a combination. However, certain group of patients do not even qualify for CABG. Transmyocardial Laser Revascularization (TMR) is a unique new surgical modality specially for that sub group of patient population w...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the status of transmyocardial laser revascularization (TMLR) from an evidence-based perspective to help hospitals make resource management decisions. STUDY DESIGN Qualitative systematic review of the clinical literature. METHODS We searched the reference databases MEDLINE, BIOSIS, EMBASE, SciSearch, and Current Contents to identify all articles related to TMLR publishe...