Stenting of unprotected left main stem stenosis: Results from a German single-centre registry.

Objective: To elucidate the influence of drug-eluting stents (DESs) on interventional therapy of de novo unprotected left main stem (LMS) lesions in a hospital with on-site cardiac surgery.

Methods And Results: A retrospective study of all patients with unprotected LMS angioplasty from 1999 to 2005 was conducted with regard to clinical and procedural data, and follow-up data. Fifty-four patients with unprotected LMS stenosis were treated inter-ventionally.

Successful trapping of an organized thrombus in a coronary artery aneurysm in myocardial infarction: case report and literature review.

A 44-year-old female presented with acute inferior myocardial infarction. Emergency coronary angiography showed an aneurysm of the proximal right coronary artery and an occlusion of the vessel downstream due to a huge organized thrombus. Mechanical fragmentation, glycoprotein IIb/IIIa antagonist, and intracoronary thrombolysis were all tested without success.

Aneurysm of the left main stem leading to anterior wall infarction.

We report a case of a woman with a spontaneous dissection of the left main stem leading to a large aneurysm compressing the left coronary artery. The lesion was initially treated with a conventional multicellular stent. However, persistence of the aneurysm required that two polytetrafluoroethylene-covered stents be implanted.

Transient left ventricular apical ballooning in a community hospital in Germany.

Introduction: Tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy represents an intermittent left ventricular dysfunction with a ballooning of the left ventricular apical myocardium without significant coronary artery disease. Precise epidemiological data are not yet available.

Methods And Results: We retrospectively reviewed 16,989 cases with diagnostic angiographies in our catheter laboratory from January 2001 until December 2004 for intermittent left ventricular apical ballooning.

Use of the novel magnetic navigation system Niobe in percutaneous coronary interventions; the Hamburg experience.

Introduction: In interventional cardiology an increasing demand to treat complex coronary lesions (i.e. distal lesions, tortuous vessels, chronic occlusions) has developed within the last years.

Initial single-center experience with a new intracoronary stent.

We investigated the safety and efficacy of the recently introduced intracoronary beStent(TM). High flexibility, zero shortening after expansion and delineating gold markers at either end of the stent are favorable features of this device. Between July 1996 and February 1997, 117 patients received a total of 126 stents, measuring 15, 25 and 35 mm in length.