Inactivity of nitric oxide synthase gene in the atherosclerotic human carotid artery.

Objective: Nitric oxide (NO) inhibits thrombus formation, vascular contraction, and smooth muscle cell proliferation. We investigated whether NO release is enhanced after endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) gene transfer in atherosclerotic human carotid artery ex vivo.

Methods And Results: Western blotting and immunohistochemistry revealed that transduction enhanced eNOS expression; however, neither nitrite production nor NO release measured by porphyrinic microsensor was altered.

Coronary artery revascularization using both ITAs as free conduits in patients with three-vessel disease--the lambda graft.

Background: There is little information on using internal thoracic arteries (ITA) as free conduits in coronary artery bypass grafting. This study examines the results using both ITAs as free grafts in a lambda configuration implanting the common trunk into the ascending aorta.

Methods: Over a 6-year period, 317 patients underwent coronary artery revascularization with both ITAs as free grafts in a lambda configuration.

[Abdominal aortic aneurysms. Results of surgical treatment from 1987 to 1998].

Conventional open surgery for abdominal aortic aneurysm has recently been challenged by a closed transfemoral approach for repair (stent-graft). The presented data over the past eleven years after open surgery for graft implantation are intended to serve for comparison with future results after transfemoral graft placement. In addition, it is the purpose of this study to investigate the prognostic importance of treatment of concomitant coronary artery disease.

[Catheter-induced dissection of the right coronary ostium and aortic root].

We describe a catheter-induced dissection of the ostium of the right coronary artery extending to the aortic root. As an alternative to emergency surgery, a dacron stent-graft was placed in the proximal right coronary artery, thus, sealing the dissection. The patient later underwent elective aortocoronary bypass surgery.