bacground: evidence from several lines of investigations suggests that toll-like receptor 4 (tlr4) is involved in atherosclerosis as a bridge between innate and acquired immunity. percutaneous coronary intervention (pci) can trigger inflammation through activation of human tlr4 (htlr4) on monocytes. hydrocortisone as an anti-inflammatory and immuno-suppressant agent has multiple mechanisms of a...

D uring the past decade, advances in device technology (eg, drug-eluting stents), development of safer antico-agulants (eg, bivalirudin), and refinement in procedural techniques have led to a dramatic improvement in the effectiveness and safety of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), despite increasing clinical and anatomic complexity of treated patients. 1 As safety and effectiveness have...

We developed a PCI interface for GRAPE systems. GRAPE(GRAvity piPE) is a special-purpose computer for gravitational N -body simulations. A GRAPE system consists of GRAPE processor boards and a host computer. GRAPE processors perform the calculation of gravitational forces between particles. The host computer performs the rest of calculations. The newest of GRAPE machines, the GRAPE-4, achieved ...

BACKGROUND The optimal treatment of unprotected left main (UPLM) with either PCI or CABG remains uncertain. AIM The purpose of this study was to determine the comparative safety and efficacy of PCI versus CABG in patients with UPLM disease. METHODS Search of BioMedCentral, CENTRAL, mRCT, PubMed, major cardiological congresses proceedings and references cross-check (updated November 2016). O...

Following the recent publication of the PRAMI trial, the appearance of the article entitled ‘‘Multivessel approach in ST-elevation myocardial infarction: Impact on in-hospital morbidity and mortality’’ by Santos et al. in this issue of the Journal could not be more timely. The study analyzed a population of patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) included in the Portuguese Regi...

BACKGROUND Guidelines advise testing for ischemia, such as with stress testing, before elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). However, pre-PCI stress testing is not always done; the implications of this practice are not known. Our objective was to evaluate whether receipt of stress testing before elective PCI predicts mortality. METHODS AND RESULTS Using claims data from a 20% ran...

Aims Optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI) is a recently developed, light-based, high-resolution intravascular imaging technique. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is a widely used, conventional imaging technique for guiding percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). We aimed to demonstrate the non-inferiority of OFDI-guided PCI compared with IVUS-guided PCI in terms of clinical outcomes. Meth...

BACKGROUND With the reduction in restenosis rates by drug-eluting stents, there is new controversy concerning the optimal management of incidental, nontarget lesions identified during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Such lesions have been treated conservatively because of risk of restenosis but now are being considered for PCI to prevent plaque instability. However, the impact of inci...