Steroids and statins: an old and a new anti-inflammatory strategy compared.

Objectives: This study compared the anti-inflammatory effects of methylprednisolone (MP) and atorvastatin and analysed their influences on clinical variables in patients undergoing coronary revascularization.

Methods: Ninety patients with compromised left ventricular ejection fraction (≤30%) undergoing elective coronary surgery were equally randomized to one of three groups: statin group, treatment with atorvastatin (20 mg/day) 3 weeks before surgery; methylprednisolone group, a single shot of methylpredniosolone (10mg/kg); and control group.

Results: Postoperative IL-6 was higher in the control group when compared to the methylprednisolone and statin groups (p<0.

Coronary-coronary radial artery graft for single, distal LAD lesion.

Radial artery segment has been used as a coronary-coronary graft for single, distal lesion of the large left anterior descending coronary artery running well over the cardiac apex. In our opinion this technique may occasionally be an attractive approach for bypassing very distal lesions of large coronary arteries combined with regular arterial or venous grafting of the target artery if proximal stenosis is also present. The remnant of the radial artery can be used for grafting of another diseased artery (eg, the large first marginal branch of the circumflex artery in our case report).