OBJECTIVE Preoperative measurements of collateral blood flow in patients with triple vessel disease and chronic occlusions of the right coronary artery do not, currently, ascertain the need to revascularise an occluded right coronary artery. We performed direct measurements of flow across left coronary bypass grafts to determine their contributions to collateral blood flow. METHODS Collateral...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether a well developed collateral circulation predisposes to restenosis after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). DESIGN Prospective observational study. PATIENTS AND SETTING 58 patients undergoing elective single vessel PCI in a tertiary referral interventional cardiac unit in the UK. METHODS Collateral flow index (CFI) was calculated as (Pw-Pv)/(Pa-Pv), whe...

METHODS Five hundred patients with stable one to three vessel coronary artery disease (CAD) and without Q wave myocardial infarction underwent quantitative assessment of the coronary collateral circulation during coronary angioplasty. The patients were divided into two different groups according to the use of statins (termed ‘‘statin group’’, n = 186) or the absence of statin treatment (termed ...

INTRODUCTION We evaluated the association between two single nucleotide polymorphisms of the vascular endothelial growth factor gene and one of the hypoxia-inducible factor-1α gene and the degree of coronary collateral formation in patients with a coronary chronic total occlusion. METHODS Totally, 98 patients with symptomatic coronary artery disease and a chronic total occlusion observed duri...

AIMS The metabolic syndrome (MS) is associated with an increased cardiovascular risk. Patients with the MS have endothelial dysfunction, decreased circulating adiponectin, and a high expression of angiogenic inhibitors such as plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1). We hypothesized that such patients, in the event of a coronary occlusion, might exhibit a less developed collateral circulation...

OBJECTIVE The role of ischemia in collateral vessel development (arteriogenesis) is a contentious issue that cannot be addressed using mammalian models. To investigate this, we developed models of arteriogenesis using the zebrafish embryo, which gains sufficient oxygenation via diffusion to prevent ischemia in response to arterial occlusion. METHODS AND RESULTS We studied gridlock mutant embr...

Diabetic complications and vascular disease are closely intertwined. Diabetes mellitus is a well-established risk factor for both large and small vessel vascular changes, and conversely other vascular risk factors confer increased risk for diabetic complications such as peripheral neuropathy, nephropathy and retinopathy. Furthermore, axons and blood vessels share molecular signals for purposes ...

E stablished options for revascularisation of coronary artery disease (CAD) are angioplasty or bypass surgery, both of which are unsuitable in about one in five patients because of the severity of atherosclerosis, comorbidities, or both. An alternative therapeutic option is to promote the endogenous development of collateral vessels. There are three principle ways in which vessel growth can occ...

A totally occluded coronary vessel subtending a noninfarcted, entirely collateral-dependent myocardial region (NIECDMR) provides an opportunity to assess collateral perfusion during exercise stress. Collateral function was determined by analysis of exercise thallium-201 myocardial perfusion images from 31 patients who had at least one NIECDMR (total 41 NIECDMRs) documented during catheterizatio...