OBJECTIVES Coronary lumen changes during and after excimer laser-assisted balloon angioplasty were measured by quantitative coronary angiography, and the results were compared with the effects of balloon angioplasty alone. BACKGROUND Reduction of atherosclerotic tissue mass by laser ablation in the treatment of coronary artery disease may be more effective in enlarging the lumen than balloon ...

The incidence of coronary artery spasm at the site of previous successful angioplasty and its importance in leading to subsequent restenosis or recurrence of symptoms are unknown. Fourteen consecutive patients with single vessel coronary artery disease who had undergone successful percutaneous transluminal angioplasty were studied. All patients were given ergometrine maleate (ergonovine maleate...

The incidence of coronary artery spasm at the site of previous successful angioplasty and its importance in leading to subsequent restenosis or recurrence of symptoms are unknown. Fourteen consecutive patients with single vessel coronary artery disease who had undergone successful percutaneous transluminal angioplasty were studied. All patients were given ergometrine maleate (ergonovine maleate...

OBJECTIVES We compared the acute and one year medical costs and outcomes of coronary stenting with those for balloon angioplasty (percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty) in contemporary clinical practice. BACKGROUND While coronary stent implantation reduces the need for repeat revascularization, it has been associated with significantly higher acute costs compared with coronary angiop...

BACKGROUND Accelerated allograft atherosclerosis is the main cause of death of cardiac transplant recipients after the first year after transplantation. Because no medical therapy is known to prevent or retard graft atherosclerosis and transplantation is associated with a shortened allograft survival, alternative, palliative therapy with percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) has...

Although thallium-201 exercise scintigraphy has been established for the detection of myocardial ischemia and viability, little is known regarding the myocardial thallium-201 kinetics during angioplasty. Herein, we report a 77-year old man with angina pectoris, in whom serial myocardial imaging after a single dose of thallium-201 was helpful in identifying not only the culprit lesion and myocar...

Among 103 patients undergoing percutaneous transluminal balloon angioplasty of obstructed aortocoronary saphenous vein bypass grafts at the Mayo Clinic, six grafts from 5 patients were available for histopathologic examination. The interval from graft insertion to angioplasty ranged from 5 to 105 months and that from angioplasty to graft excision ranged from 6 h to 24 months. Angioplasty produc...

BACKGROUND Balloon coronary angioplasty has been reported to be ineffective in patients treated for end stage renal disease because of a high restenosis rate. OBJECTIVE To compare the clinical outcome following coronary angioplasty with provisional stenting in dialysis versus non-dialysis patients. DESIGN A case-control study. PATIENTS Of 1428 consecutive patients who underwent coronary a...

OBJECTIVES We sought to study the safety, feasibility and efficacy of selective suction and pressure-regulated retroinfusion to protect against myocardial ischemia in patients undergoing normal risk and high risk balloon angioplasty. BACKGROUND In a pig model of acute myocardial ischemia it was previously shown that use of selective suction and pressure-regulated retroinfusion was able to sub...