Usefulness of dual imaging stress echocardiography for the diagnosis of coronary allograft vasculopathy in heart transplant recipients.

Background: Coronary allograft vasculopathy (CAV) is the main factor limiting long-term survival after cardiac transplantation. Dual imaging stress echocardiography with wall motion and Doppler-derived coronary flow reserve (CRF) of the left anterior descending artery (LAD) is a state-of-the-art methodology during dipyridamole stress echocardiography (DiSE). This study involving 74 heart transplanted patients has the purpose to assess the diagnostic value of dipyridamole stress echocardiography with evaluation of wall motion (WM) and Doppler-derived coronary flow reserve for the diagnosis of coronary allograft vasculopathy.

Real incidence of diabetes mellitus in a coronary disease population.

The high prevalence of unknown diabetes mellitus (DM) in patients with coronary disease and that the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) is the best diagnostic method in this context are well known. However, data about the incidence of DM in this population have not been well described. In the present study, we sought to determine the actual incidence of new-onset DM in patients with coronary disease using the OGTT.

[Single coronary artery originated in the right Valsalva sinus. Usefulness of multislice coronary angiotomography].

Single coronary artery arising from the right sinus of Valsalva is a rare congenital coronary anomaly. We report the case of a 77- year- old man who was referred for invasive coronary angiography with a diagnosis of a non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome of inferior-lateral location. Significant lesion was detected in the proximal segment of the right coronary artery (RCA).