123 I-mIBG scintigraphy to predict inducibility of ventricular arrhythmias on cardiac electrophysiology testing: a prospective multicenter pilot study.

Background: Disturbances of autonomic function after infarction are associated with both total mortality and sudden death. Although many imaging techniques for assessing the cardiac autonomic nervous system have been studied, the clinical usefulness of these techniques remains uncertain. This exploratory pilot study examined the relationship between abnormalities of ventricular sympathetic innervation delineated by scintigraphic imaging with (123)I-mIBG and inducible ventricular tachyarrhythmias in patients with left ventricular dysfunction and previous myocardial infarction.

[Myocardial infarction with "angiographycally normal coronary arteries" myth or reality?].

The leading cause of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in patients with coronary heart disease is plaque rupture. Between 6% and 12% of AMI patients have angiographically normal coronary arteries. However, new procedures have demonstrated the limits of coronarography and challenged the existence of this situation.

[Morphological and functional characteristics of the culprit coronary artery in acute coronary syndrome].

In the catheter laboratory, faced with a patient with unstable angina, the problem is not the diagnosis of epicardial coronary artery stenosis but rather the atherothrombotic complexity of the stenosis and the identification of other less stenotic lesions on angiographically normal or nearly normal segments. The authors describe two appearances with morphological analysis of the vulnerable or unstable plaque and functional analysis of coronary artery vasomotricity. Acute coronary syndromes due to a clearly stenotic atherothrombotic plaque on angiography pose no diagnostic problems.

Cardiac MIBG scintigraphy is a sensitive tool for detecting cardiac sympathetic denervation in Parkinson's disease.

[(123)I]Metaiodobenzylguanidine ([(123)I]MIBG) cardiac scintigraphy could be helpful to differentiate Parkinson's disease (PD) from multiple system atrophy (MSA), demonstrating that, in PD with autonomic failure but not in MSA, there is a myocardial postganglionic sympathetic dysfunction. To investigate whether this method is more sensitive than standard autonomic testing to detect early involvement of sympathetic cardiac efferent, we analyse MIBG myocardial uptake in 8 PD patients with normal autonomic testing (nondysautonomia PD group, NDPD) in comparison with 10 PD patients with abnormal autonomic testing (dysautonomia PD group, DPD) and 10 MSA patients. Global MIBG uptake was assessed using the ratio of [(123)I]MIBG uptake in the heart to the upper mediastinum (H/M) on planar scintigraphic data.

[Brachytherapy for coronary restenosis: state of art in 2003].

Based on therapeutic approach for benign diseases, vascular brachytherapy decreases smooth vascular muscle cells proliferation and multiplication which lead to the formation of the neo-intima. The radioactive positive action affects arterial recoil due to post angioplasty vessel injury. Randomised studies has shown good angiographic results up to 6 months of follow-up, with 50% in-stent restenosis rate decrease and on the analysed segment as well.