Vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are present in several phenotypic states in blood vessels. They show a high degree of plasticity, undergoing rapid and reversible phenotypic changes in response to environmental stresses and vascular injury. Thereby, SMCs play an important role in development of atherosclerosis and restenosis after angioplasty and coronary bypass grafting. Many functions of S...

BACKGROUND Suturing of a coronary anastomosis in totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass grafting on the beating heart is technically demanding. The potential benefits of the endoscopic Magnetic Vascular Positioner device (Ventrica, Inc, Fremont, Calif) to facilitate construction of a coronary anastomosis in a closed chest environment were evaluated. METHODS Totally endoscopic coronary arte...

Grafting on epicotyl of young seedlings has been introduced as a simple and rapid method for walnut propagation. Although this technique improves the grafting success and propagation efficiency, it is technically more demanding than the conventional walnut grafting procedures and is yet to be optimized. This study was aimed to investigate the influence of rootstock type (dwarf and standard geno...

OBJECTIVE It was the goal of this study to compare endothelium-dependent and endothelium-independent flow reserve in vascular regions supplied by the left internal mammary artery before and after bypass graft surgery. METHODS The native internal mammary artery in situ was investigated in 13 patients (age 61.8 +/- 8.0 years) with angiographically proven coronary artery disease. The internal ma...

Graft failure or progressive native vessel disease can be a serious problem after coronary artery bypass grafting. However, because of poor image quality it may be difficult to evaluate these patients by transthoracic stress echocardiography. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to evaluate the effectiveness of dobutamine stress echocardiography in the detection of myocardial territories w...

Introduction. Reconstructive surgery of abdominal aortic aneurysms, despite significant international experience, remains one the most complex issues current vascular surgery, especially due to anatomical variability arterial blood supply kidneys and abnormalities in their development, among which common is a horseshoe kidney. Features vascularization, placement renal isthmus relative main vess...

Diffuse refractory vascular spasms associated with coronary bypass artery grafting (CABG) are rare but devastating. A 42-year-old male patient with a past history of stent insertion was referred for the surgical treatment of a recurrent left main coronary artery disease. A hemodynamic derangement developed during graft harvesting, necessitating a hurried initiation of cardiopulmonary bypass (CP...

A 78-year-old man presented at Eulji University Hospital due to an abdominal aortic aneurysm with maximum diameter of 52 mm, which had been increased from 45 mm over 6 months. He underwent embolization of the left internal iliac artery with vascular plug, prior to endovascular abdominal aortic repair with a bifurcated stent graft system. Unfortunately, the inserted vascular plug was maldeployed...