AN IDEAL LESION for coronary artery bypass graft surgery is a severe proximal narrowing of a major coronary artery with a distal vessel free of severe disease. It would be helpful if it were possible to identify those patients likely to have such ideal "surgical" lesions prior to arteriography by means of the electrocardiogram. It has been proposed that the presence of transient ST-segment elev...

AIMS Previous studies revealed that >/=70% or <30% ST segment elevation resolution 180 min after the start of thrombolysis is a strong predictor of either favourable or poor outcome. The aim of this study was to compare the prognostic value of ST segment elevation resolution at 90 and 180 min after the start of streptokinase infusion. METHODS AND RESULTS The Hirudin for Improvement of Thrombo...

Exercise tests were performed in 14 patients with untreated variant angina with frequent spontaneous attacks and in 15 patients after treatment abolished the attacks. (1) Anginal attacks associated with ST elevation were induced by exercise in 79% of untreated patients. By contrast, ST elevation was not observed in treated patients and ST depression was induced in 53% of the cases. (2) Exercise...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this project was to study the responsible site(s) and underlying cardiac disease(s) of patients with transient ST-segment elevation and normal coronary angiograms. BACKGROUND Transient ST-segment elevation has been demonstrated in patients with variant angina or unstable angina. In those patients, epicardial coronary arteries, not microvessels, are always the responsible...

The haemodynamic response to myocardial ischaemia in patients with variant angina during ambulatory activity is unknown. Ambulatory pulmonary artery pressure monitoring with a transducer tipped catheter and simultaneous frequency modulated electrocardiograms was used to assess changes in left ventricular function in five male patients (mean age 51.8 years) during variant angina; four patients h...

intrOdUctiOn Reading EKGs is an integral skill in Emergency Medicine, especially given the fact that determining the presence and amount of ST segment elevation (STE) is one of the key factors to initiating fibrinolytic eligibility. STE is generally measured in reference to the J point (the end of the QRS segment and the beginning of the ST segment). However, it may not be clear in clinical pra...

the invention of the drug-eluting stent (des) has brought about revolutionary changes in the field of interventional cardiology. in the des era, in-stent restenosis has declined but new issues such as stent thrombosis have emerged. one of the emerging paradigms in the des era is stent fracture. there are reports about stent fracture leading to in-stent restenosis or stent thrombosis. most of th...