Publications by authors named "M M Meertens"

Background: Transradial secondary access (TR-SA) may serve as an alternative to the traditional femoral secondary access (TF-SA) for pigtail placement in transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR).

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the incidence of secondary access-related vascular complications after TR-SA or TF-SA in TAVR.

Methods: The PULSE (Plug or sUture based vascuLar cloSurE after TAVR) registry retrospectively evaluated data of 10,120 patients who underwent transfemoral TAVR at 10 heart centers from 2016 to 2021.

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Background: Patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) are often pretreated with unfractionated heparin (UFH) before a primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI). UFH pretreatment is intended to lessen the thrombotic burden, but there have been conflicting study findings on its safety and efficacy. We assessed the risks and benefits of UFH pretreatment with a retrospective analysis of registry data from the STEMI network of a German metropolitan region.

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Article Synopsis
  • Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) via transfemoral access is becoming more common in treating aortic valve disease, though access-related vascular complications still affect about 10% of procedures.
  • This study analyzed patients from Dutch and German hospitals who underwent TF-TAVI between 2017 and 2021, focusing on those who had occlusive complications (OC) versus hemorrhagic complications (HC) requiring further intervention.
  • Results showed that patients with OC had significantly smaller arterial diameters compared to those with HC, while those with HC had a higher tortuosity index, highlighting the need for careful preoperative imaging to tailor prevention strategies.
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Background: Left ventricular thrombus (LVT) is associated with high rates of systemic embolism. Vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) are the only approved treatment for LVT. Although evidence suggests direct oral anticoagulant (DOACs) to be at least equally effective in general, the efficacy of individual DOACs remains unclear.

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Background: Physical activity prevents cardiovascular disease, but it may also trigger acute cardiac events like sudden cardiac death in patients with underlying heart disease. The chance of surviving an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest remains low, despite improving medical treatment and rescue chain. Prior studies signaled increased survival in exercise related out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

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