Culprit versus Complete Revascularization during the Initial Intervention in Patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome Using a Virtual Treatment Planning Tool: Results of a Single-Center Pilot Study.

The revascularization strategy for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with multivessel (MV) acute coronary syndrome (ACS) remains controversial. Certain gaps in the evidence are related to the optimal timing of non-culprit lesion revascularization and the utility of instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR) in the management of MV ACS intervention. The major benefits of iFR utilization in MV ACS patients in one-stage complete revascularization are: (1) the possibility to virtually plan the PCI, both the location and the extension of the necessary stenting to achieve the prespecified final hemodynamic result; (2) the opportunity to validate the final hemodynamic result of the PCI, both in culprit artery and all non-culprit arteries and (3) the value of obliviating the uncomfortable, costly, time consuming and sometimes deleterious effects from Adenosine, as there is no requirement for administration.

Use of exploratory factor analysis to ascertain the correlation between the activities of rheumatoid arthritis and infection by human parvovirus B19.

Background And Objective: We evaluated a possible correlation between the clinical activities of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and human parvovirus B19 (B19) infection using exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

Materials And Methods: RA patients were organized into two groups: 100 patients in the main group and 97 in the RA(DAS28) group. Four subgroups were defined from the main group according to the presence or absence of certain infection-specific markers: group I comprised 43 patients who had IgG antibodies against B19; group II, 25 patients with active B19 infection (B19-specific IgM antibodies and/or plasma viremia); group III, 19 patients with latent/persistent B19 infection (virus-specific sequences in peripheral blood leukocytes' DNA with or without B19-specific IgG antibodies), and group IV, 13 patients without infection markers.

Incidence and clinical significance of parvovirus B19 infection in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: To determine the prevalence and clinical significance of human parvovirus B19 (B19) infection in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: One hundred patients with RA and 94 apparently healthy blood donor controls were enrolled for study. Plasma samples of patients and controls were examined for the presence of anti-B19-specific antibodies by ELISA.