Acute and long-term clinical significance of myocardial contusion following blunt thoracic trauma: results of a prospective study.

Background: The clinical significance of myocardial contusion (MC) following blunt thoracic trauma is still unknown. Accordingly, in this prospective study in a regional trauma center we investigated the acute and long-term clinical significance of MC.

Methods: One-hundred eighteen patients with manifest or suspected blunt thoracic trauma were evaluated for cardiac injury.

Hyperfibrinogenemia increases the risk of cardiac events after coronary artery stenting.

Primary success rates, and the angiographic and clinical outcome after percutaneous coronary intervention, are influenced by many different factors. Clinical features and morphologic characteristics of the target lesion are important. Also, interventionally caused endothelial trauma may trigger atherogenetic and procoagulatory factors leading to intraluminal thrombosis.

[Expectations and satisfaction of patients during inpatient treatment].

Purpose: Aim of the study was to examine the expectations of patients at the beginning and the satisfaction at the end of a hospital stay. The hospital settings were standardised.

Methods: 510 patients on the cardiological ward were asked to fill in a questionnaire on the first and last day of their stay.

Efficacy and safety of ticlopidine monotherapy versus ticlopidine and aspirin after coronary artery stenting: follow-up results of a randomized study.

A combined antiplatelet treatment with ticlopidine and aspirin has been accepted as standard pharmacological regimen after coronary artery stenting. No data of a randomized trial are available on ticlopidine monotherapy. This prospective, randomized monocenter trial investigates the role of ticlopidine monotherapy versus combined antiplatelet therapy with ticlopidine and aspirin in unselected patients undergoing coronary artery stenting.

Coronary morphologic findings after stent implantation.

Clinical studies demonstrated a reduction of acute complications by high-pressure stenting. This study was performed to correlate the histomorphologic changes of the vessel wall after coronary stenting with stent expansion pressure. We studied the effects of intravital and postmortem stenting on coronary morphology in human hearts.