An echocardiographic clue for ostial left main coronary artery stenosis.

Calcified nodules in human coronary arteries are usually focally distributed. Non-invasive imaging of coronary arteries by bedside emergency transthoracic echocardiography in adults is possible and may become a useful adjunct to other methods of coronary artery examination. Coronary artery stenosis can be identified as localized color aliasing and accelerated flow velocities.

[A rare cause of heart failure: aortocaval fistula associated with herniated lumbar disc surgery].

Although aortocaval fistula is mostly encountered as a complication of abdominal aortic aneurysms, it may also arise as a complication of lumbar disc surgery. Great arteriovenous shunts especially may lead to high-output heart failure in due time. In this paper, we aim to present a case of high-output heart failure secondary to aortocaval fistule caused by lumbar disc surgery.

Side-by-side false and true lumen stenting for recanalization of the chronically occluded right coronary artery.

Subintimal or false lumen stent deployment is a rare complication of percutaneous coronary interventions. The most balloon-induced small non-flow limiting dissections heal spontaneously and can be treated medically with close observation if distal coronary flow is not compromised. However, the complex and severe flow-limiting postprocedural dissections may result in abrupt vessel closure and thrombosis, with ensuing myocardial ischemia and necrosis, and can be treated effectively by coronary stenting.

Clinical validation of technetium-99m MIBI-gated single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) for avoiding false positive results in patients with left bundle-branch block: comparison with stress-rest nongated SPECT.

Background: Septal perfusion defects are common on myocardial perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) slices in patients with left bundle-branch block (LBBB) in the absence of coronary artery disease.

Hypothesis: The use of gated myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging in such patients should be clinically validated. The aims of this study were, therefore, to validate clinically the use of gated myocardial SPECT imaging to avoid false positive septal perfusion defects in patients with LBBB and to compare nongated and gated SPECT imaging techniques in the same patients in the same imaging session.