The Impact of COVID-19 on Mortality and Clinical Characteristics in Hospitalized Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease in the Year 2020 in Germany.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic developed its full destructive capacity in 2020. This retrospective study aimed to examine the effects of COVID-19 on the mortality and the clinical characteristics in PAD patients with COVID-19 compared to PAD patients without COVID-19.

Methods And Results: Data derived from a German nationwide register of the year 2020 which encompassed all hospitalized patients with PAD ( = 173.

Muscle ultrasound shear wave elastography for detection of early onset lower limb ischemia in patients with veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

Background And Objectives: Limb ischemia or compartment syndrome, requiring surgery, are some of the frequent cannula-related complications in patients supported with veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO). The purpose of this exploratory study is to depict and evaluate the dynamic changes in the lower limb muscles with ultrasound shear wave elastography as marker for early lower limb ischemia.

Methods: Eleven patients with VA-ECMO after cardiac arrest were included in this study.

Weakness of lower limb muscle in symptomatic peripheral artery disease with media sclerosis detected by ultrasound shear wave elastography.

Symptomatic peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is difficult to non-invasively diagnose in the presence of calcified, media sclerotic arteries that are incompressible by blood pressure cuffs. Standard ankle-brachial index (ABI) measurements in these PAD patients are very often not helpful. Shear wave elastography (SWE) is a modern ultrasound technique to detect peripheral muscle stiffness changes i.

Bioresorbable zinc stent with ultra-thin center struts attenuates stent jail in porcine femoral artery bifurcations.

Introduction: An ultra-thin, fracture-resistant and bioresorbable stent may be advantageous for provisional stenting in vessel bifurcations, if catheter passage and side-branch post-dilatation is facilitated to prevent a 'stent jail' by struts obstructing the orifice of a major side branch.

Material And Methods: We studied a highly radiopaque, slowly bioresorbable zinc alloy stent characterized by a novel design of a radiopaque-marked region of ultra-thin struts in the center of the stent. The stent is characterized by an extended range flexibility and high fracture resistance.

Publisher Correction: Real-time magnetic resonance imaging - guided coronary intervention in a porcine model.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.