Mechanisms underlying restenosis after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) are important to elucidate, as evidenced by the recent success of monoclonal antibodies to platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa in preventing restenosis.1,2 In this issue of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, a report by Cipollone et al3 describes the association of monocyte chemoattractant p...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to assess the clinical and angiographic benefits of elective stenting in coronary arteries with a reference diameter of 2.1 to 3.0 mm, as compared with traditional percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). BACKGROUND The problems related to small-vessel stenting might be overcome using modern stents designed for small vessels, combined wit...

Early restenosis is the major complication of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), occurring in '30% of all initially successful procedures. The D/I polymorphism of the ACE gene, which has variably been reported to represent a risk factor for manifestations of ischemic heart disease, has recently been implicated in the pathophysiology of restenosis after PTCA by some investiga...

BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to analyse parameters reflecting the sympathovagal control of ventricular depolarisation and repolarisation [heart rate variability (HRV) and QT interval dispersion (QTd)] in patients undergoing elective percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), and determine whether HRV correlates with QT dispersion parameters. METHODS The study consisted of 2...

To verify the interaction between coronary pressure (CP) and blood flow (CBF) control, we studied nine candidates for angioplasty of an isolated lesion of the left anterior descending coronary artery [i.e. , percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA)]. CBF (i.e., flow velocity x coronary cross-sectional area at the Doppler tip) and CP were monitored during washout of 2-5 mCi of (133)...

Conclusions In today's health care environment, decisions about medical interventions need to reflect measures of cost as well as clinical benefit. While it is clear that PTCA is significantly more expensive than medical therapy alone, analyses incorporating quality of life considerations suggest that angioplasty techniques that have been shown to improve clinical outcomes are, for the most par...

Correspondence to Dr H H Gray, Wessex Cardiac Unit, Southampton General Hospital Southampton S09 4XY Coronary heart disease is responsible for considerable morbidity and is the single most common cause of death in the United Kingdom. Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) are of proven symptomatic benefit, and CABG improves prognosis in ...

BACKGROUND We wished to investigate whether platelet activation is related to the clinical outcome during the 24 hours immediately after elective percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). METHODS AND RESULTS In 102 patients with high-grade coronary stenosis admitted for elective PTCA, preprocedural platelet activation was characterized by flow cytometric measurement of the protei...

The time from admission to reperfusion in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) was compared according to the type of hospital and treatment strategy. A total of 164 patients with a first AMI within 12h of onset were enrolled at one tertiary emergency center (TEC) and 6 community hospitals (CHs). The subjects were randomly assigned to receive either primary percutaneous transluminal c...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Previous studies have reported encouraging results with percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and cardiogenic shock (CS). However, PTCA fails in many patients and the mortality rate associated with the procedure is very high. This study sought to assess the determinants of successful coronary artery bypass...