Diagnosis of Coexisting Valvular Heart Diseases Using Image-to-Sequence Translation of Contact Microphone Recordings.

Objective: Development of a contact microphone-driven screening framework for the diagnosis of coexisting valvular heart diseases (VHDs).

Methods: A sensitive accelerometer contact microphone (ACM) is employed to capture heart-induced acoustic components on the chest wall. Inspired by the human auditory system, ACM recordings are initially transformed into Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) and their first and second derivatives, resulting in 3-channel images.

Diagnosis of Peripheral Artery Disease Using Backflow Abnormalities in Proximal Recordings of Accelerometer Contact Microphone (ACM).

Objective: The development of an accurate, non-invasive method for the diagnosis of peripheral artery disease (PAD) from accelerometer contact microphone (ACM) recordings of the cardiac system.

Methods: Mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) are initially extracted from ACM recordings. The extracted MFCCs are then used to fine-tune a pre-trained ResNet50 network whose middle layers provide streams of high-level-of-abstraction coefficients (HLACs) which could provide information on blood pressure backflow caused by arterial obstructions in PAD patients.

Direct Stenting in Patients Treated with Orbital Atherectomy: An ORBIT II Subanalysis.

Background: Direct stenting offers many potential advantages in appropriately selected lesions. Coronary artery calcification increases the complexity and risk of adverse events associated with percutaneous coronary intervention. This study aimed to examine the feasibility of direct stenting after treatment with orbital atherectomy (OA).

Transradial versus tibiopedal access approach for endovascular intervention of superficial femoral artery chronic total occlusion.

Background: Improved equipment and techniques have resulted in transition from surgical bypass to endovascular intervention to treat superficial femoral artery (SFA) chronic total occlusions (CTO). A change in access site to radial (TRA) or tibiopedal (TPA) artery for the treatment of these SFA CTO has been reported. The feasibility, efficacy and safety of these two access sites for treatment of SFA CTO have not been reported.

Pivotal trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the orbital atherectomy system in treating de novo, severely calcified coronary lesions (ORBIT II).

Objectives: The ORBIT II (Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of OAS in Treating Severely Calcified Coronary Lesions) trial evaluated the safety and efficacy of the coronary Orbital Atherectomy System (OAS) to prepare de novo, severely calcified coronary lesions for stent placement.

Background: Despite advances in interventional techniques, treatment of calcified coronary lesions remains a challenge. Stent placement in these lesions may result in stent underexpansion, malapposition, and procedural complications.

Stent parameters predict major adverse clinical events and the response to platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa blockade: findings of the ESPRIT trial.

Background: Only limited data describe relationships between stent parameters (length and diameter), adverse events after percutaneous coronary intervention, and effects of platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa blockade by stent parameters.

Methods And Results: In this post hoc analysis of the 1983 patients receiving a stent in the Enhanced Suppression of the Platelet Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa Receptor with Integrilin Therapy randomized percutaneous coronary intervention trial of eptifibatide versus placebo, rates of the major adverse cardiac event (MACE) end point (death, myocardial infarction, urgent target-vessel revascularization, or thrombotic bailout) at 48 hours and 1 year were correlated with stent parameters and then analyzed by randomization to eptifibatide versus placebo. In the placebo group, MACE increased with number of stents implanted, total stent length (by quartiles of <15, 15 to <18, 18 to <30, and >or=30 mm), and total stented vessel area (by quartiles of area <141, 141 to <188, 188 to <292, and >or=292 mm(2)).

Enhancing the diagnostic performance of troponins in the acute care setting.

Background: Current guidelines define cardiac troponin I (TnI) as an indicator of necrosis when the concentration exceeds the 99% upper limit of a healthy reference population, a reference value near the assay's lowest detectable level. We assessed the utility of a modified TnI cutoff point derived from a population at low risk for coronary artery disease (CAD) and evaluated its utility in determining acute myocardial infarction (MI).

Methods: A modified TnI cutoff point was derived by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve from 737 consecutive patients who underwent serial TnI measurements for exclusion of MI.

Acute upper extremity arterial occlusion: a novel role for the use of rheolytic thrombectomy and intravascular ultrasound.

Acute peripheral arterial occlusion may be caused by thrombosis or embolism. The objectives of therapy are to preserve limb and life by restoration of blood flow. Thrombolytic therapy has been the mainstay, but is limited by a high risk of bleeding.

Effects of celecoxib and rofecoxib on blood pressure and edema in patients > or =65 years of age with systemic hypertension and osteoarthritis.

Concomitant use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including the cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) specific inhibitors, with antihypertensive medication is common practice for many patients with arthritis. This study evaluated the effects of celecoxib 200 mg/day and rofecoxib 25 mg/day on blood pressure (BP) and edema in a 6-week, randomized, parallel-group, double-blind study in patients > or =65 years of age with osteoarthritis who were treated with fixed antihypertensive regimens. One thousand ninety-two patients received study medication (celecoxib, n = 549; rofecoxib, n = 543).