Multicentre medicoeconomic evaluation of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging for predicting coronary artery disease in left ventricular dysfunction: The CAMAREC study design.

Background: Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging may provide a non-invasive alternative to coronary angiography for differentiating between ischaemic and non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy in cases of unexplained reduced left ventricular ejection fraction.

Aim: The CAMAREC study aims to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in predicting significant coronary artery disease in patients with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction, using coronary angiography as the gold standard for comparison.

Methods: CAMAREC is a prospective cohort study of 406 patients in 10 centres with newly diagnosed, unexplained left ventricular ejection fraction ≤ 45%.

Minimalist Management of Occlusive Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection With Workhorse Guidewire: The Prick-and-Wait Technique.

We describe what could be a bailout strategy in the event of (1) failure to reach the distal true lumen, (2) slight improvement in the distal flow, but allowing clinical resolution of STEMI, or (3) a situation not suited to surgery. The "prick-and-wait" technique presented in this case led to a complete recovery.

Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance May Avoid Unnecessary Coronary Angiography in Patients With Unexplained Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction: A Retrospective Diagnostic Pilot Study.

Background: Coronary angiography (CA) is usually performed in patients with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) to search ischemic cardiomyopathy. Our aim was to examine the agreement between CA and cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging among a cohort of patients with unexplained reduced LVEF, and estimate what would have been the consequences of using CMR imaging as the first-line examination.

Methods: Three hundred five patients with unexplained reduced LVEF of ≤45% who underwent both CA and CMR imaging were retrospectively registered.

Aortic valve anatomy and outcomes after transcatheter aortic valve implantation in bicuspid aortic valves.

This original clinical research study id focused on description of baseline anatomy and outcomes after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) in patients presenting with severe aortic stenosis (AS) and bicuspid aortic valve (BAV). We compared this BAV population with a population of patients with AS and tricuspid aortic valves after a propensity score matching developed by a multivariate logistic regression according to a non-parsimonious approach. Baseline anatomical characteristics were obtained by transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and multi-sliced computed tomography (MSCT) and compared by chi-square and t-student tests.