Spontaneous acute dissection of left main stem artery is an extremely rare occurrence, with less than 40 cases documented in world literature. The clinical presentation of spontaneous left main stem dissection is similar to severe atherosclerotic disease, but the usual risk factors are absent. More than 70% of SCAD occurs in women and 30% occur during peripartum period and the mean age is 30-45...

BACKGROUND Coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) has been widely used in patients who are at intermediate risk for having stable coronary artery disease (SCAD), and 2013 European Society of Cardiology Guidelines on the Management of SCAD (2013G) recommended the appropriate application of CCTA. However, 2013G has not been subjected to systematic analyses for subsequent impact on clini...

The platelet-specific collagen receptor glycoprotein VI (GPVI) is critical for the formation of arterial thrombosis in vivo. We analyzed GPVI-activated platelets from ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients and matched stable coronary artery disease (SCAD) controls in order to provide novel clues on the degree of involvement of GPVI signaling in the acute event. Firstly, platelets w...

Mutations in the genes encoding transforming growth factor β receptors 1 and 2 (TGFBR1 and TGFBR2) have recently been associated with hereditary connective tissue disorders with widespread vascular involvement, including arterial dissection. To determine whether mutations in these genes cause spontaneous cervical artery dissection (sCAD), all coding exons of TGFBR1 and TGFBR2 were sequenced in ...

S OF PAPERS 239 101 Genome sequencing and comparative analysis of avian coronavirus. M. W. Jackwood,* E. T. McKinley, J. E. Philips, and S. W. Thor, University of Georgia, Athens. Genome sequencing and comparative genomics can be used to examine past host and tissue tropism shifts to aid in identification of new variant viruses, to identify genetic differences between different pathotypes, and ...

BACKGROUND Previously proposed classifications for carotid plaque and cerebral parenchymal hemorrhages are used to estimate the age of hematoma according to its signal intensities on T1w and T2w MR images. Using these classifications, we systematically investigated the value of cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) in determining the age of vessel wall hematoma (VWH) in patients with spontane...

BACKGROUND Mast cells are prevalent in the shoulder of unstable atheromas; cardiac mast cells secrete proteases capable of activating matrix metalloproteinases. Histamine is essential in the inflammatory cascade of the unstable plaque. Ascorbate depletion has been correlated with histaminemia which has been shown to impair endothelial-dependent vasodilation. This study evaluates whether oxidati...

BACKGROUND Headache or neck pain is a frequent symptom of spontaneous cervical artery dissection (sCAD). PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients were drawn from an ongoing hospital-based registry of consecutive cases diagnosed with sCAD. Only patients with isolated pain were included in this series. Pain topography, dynamics, severity and quality, imaging findings and outcome were analysed. RESULTS 2...

K nearest neighbors (KNN) are known as one of the simplest nonparametric classifiers but in high dimensional setting accuracy of KNN are affected by nuisance features. In this study, we proposed the K important neighbors (KIN) as a novel approach for binary classification in high dimensional problems. To avoid the curse of dimensionality, we implemented smoothly clipped absolute deviation (SCAD...

Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is rare, but it frequently presents as acute myocardial infarction. It is frequently fatal and most cases are diagnosed at autopsy. We herein present the case of a 65-year-old woman with ST-elevation and myocardial infarction due to SCAD. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) helped us to confirm the diagnosis. The information on the intravascular morp...