PURPOSE To evaluate the efficacy of Palmaz balloon-expandable metallic stents for the maintenance of luminal patency in the treatment of recurrent nasolacrimal duct, obstructions after failed transluminal balloon dilatation. METHODS Metallic stents were implanted in the nasolacrimal duct of four patients with recurrent epiphora. All the patients had already undergone transluminal balloon dila...

Subcostal echocardiography of the left ventricle was continuously recorded during balloon dilatation of the aortic valve in ten consecutive elderly patients. Left ventricular wall motion decreased gradually during a minute of maintained complete balloon inflation. Blind analysis of M mode echocardiograms showed a significant reduction in fractional shortening. Deflation of the balloon resulted ...

Drug-coated balloon has been developed as an alternative to drug-eluting stents for in-stent restenosis but the performance of drug infusion balloon in such setting has not been previously described. We present a case of particularly aggressive in-stent restenosis after drug eluting stent implantation treated with a new kind of drug infusion balloon developed in order to overcome the impossibil...

BACKGROUND Eustachian tube dysfunction is common and implicated in persistent middle ear disease. Recent studies suggest the promise of balloon dilatation of the Eustachian tube to modify local anatomy and physiology, restoring normal function. OBJECTIVES A literature review of the outcomes of balloon dilatation of the Eustachian tube was conducted, assessing four criteria (tympanometry, otos...

A tokamak's confinement time is greatly increased by a transport barrier (TB), a region having a high pressure gradient and usually also a strongly sheared plasma flow. The pressure gradient in a TB can be limited by ideal magnetohydrodynamic instabilities with a high toroidal mode number n ("ballooning modes"). Previous studies in the limit n--> infinity showed that arbitrarily small (but nonz...

High beta poloidal tokamaks can confine plasma pressures an order of magnitude higher than their low beta poloidal counterparts. The theoretical stability of these high beta poloidal magnetohydrodynamics equilibria was left unresolved for many years. Using modern computational tools, such configurations are now found stable to Mercier, resistive and high-n (ideal and resistive) ballooning crite...

AIMS Glimepiride is a new sulfonylurea for diabetes treatment which is supposed to impact less on extra-pancreatic ATP-dependent K+ channels than the conventional drug glibenclamide. This study was performed to evaluate whether this results in a better maintenance of ATP-dependent K+ channel mediated ischaemic myocardial preconditioning. METHODS AND RESULTS In a double-blind placebo-controlle...