The cat basilar artery was exposed using the transclival approach. After administration of 5% ethanol via intravenous infusion, vasospasm was produced by applying the animal's fresh arterial blood to the exposed artery. The resultant vasospasm was of markedly reduced intensity and duration as compared to vasospasm in control animals. In ethanol-treated animals with spasm induced from non-autoge...

Seven patients with epidermolysis bullosa dystrophica and chronic and recurrent oesophageal lesions such as spasm, strictures, and complete occlusion were studied. Dysphagia could be cured with drugs if it was caused by bullae formation or spasm. If oesophageal strictures were present, endoscopy and bouginage with corticosteroid prophylaxis during the quiescent phase of the disease was a safe a...

Sixteen patients with hemifacial spasm were treated by posterior fossa surgery and wrapping of sponge around their facial nerve. A good or excellent result has been obtained in fourteen of the sixteen cases, and in seven cases followed by four years or longer. Two patients had a mild recurrence of their hemifacial spasm after a cessation of their spasm for eighteen months and two years followin...

Pulsed field ablation (PFA) has been shown to avoid esophageal damage, PV stenosis and permanent phrenic nerve paralysis. But not studied in these trials was of the cavo-tricuspid isthmus (CTI), a uncommon adjunct target for during pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) procedures. Indeed, recent studies demonstrated that when PFA is performed adjacent coronary artery, there susceptibility vasospasm: s...

Purpose Accommodative spasm, which manifests as ciliary muscle spasm, convergent strabismus or miosis, is a recognised consequence of head trauma. In whiplash cases, cervical spine hyperextension poses a risk of contra-coup injury and brainstem trauma, and is known to affect the visual system. However, to date, no cases of accommodative spasm due to whiplash injury have been reported. Observa...

BACKGROUND Patients with angina and normal coronary arteries are often misdiagnosed with having non-cardiac pain. Although vasospasm is a well-known entity, spasm provocation is not routinely done in the majority of hospitals at present. MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred and sixty two consecutive patients with thoracic pain and normal coronary arteries were retrospectively studied. The charac...

Myocardial infarction (MI) is an extremely common cause of chest pain. MI can be acute with ST elevation (STEMI) or non-STEMI (NSTEMI). Coronary artery spasm can be severe enough to cause occlusion of the coronary arteries particularly with an exaggerated response in regions of coronary atheroma and plaque ulceration. It is not uncommon for coronary spasm to be mistaken with acute thrombotic oc...

In coronary artery bypass surgery, arterial grafts result in improved patency rates. However, these grafts frequently fail due to spasm. Papaverine has been used to prevent graft spasm, but its effect is short-lived. Botulinum toxin inhibits muscle contraction for about three months. We investigated the usefulness of botulinum toxin in preventing arterial grafts spasm in vitro. Samples of abdom...

BACKGROUND Vasospastic angina (VA) can occasionally cause acute myocardial infarction (AMI). METHODS AND RESULTS From January 2003 to June 2005, coronary spastic angina was diagnosed in 292 patients by performing spasm provocation tests. Among the 292 patients, 21 (7.2% of all the VA patients) had an AMI. There were 20 patients who initially visited the emergency room for AMI without sufferin...