Effect of smoking on clinical outcomes in patients receiving rotational atherectomy in calcified coronary lesions: from the ROCK Registry, South Korea.

Background: Tobacco smoking and its harmful health effects also increase economic burdens globally. Surprisingly, despite the detrimental health consequences of smoking, some studies have shown better survival among smokers compared with non-smokers, a phenomenon called "smoker's paradox". However, the impact of smoking status on clinical outcomes in severe calcified coronary artery disease (CAD) patients has yet to be reported.

A Monte Carlo simulation study of the effect of energy windows in computed tomography images based on an energy-resolved photon counting detector.

The energy-resolved photon counting detector provides the spectral information that can be used to generate images. The novel imaging methods, including the K-edge imaging, projection-based energy weighting imaging and image-based energy weighting imaging, are based on the energy-resolved photon counting detector and can be realized by using various energy windows or energy bins. The location and width of the energy windows or energy bins are important because these techniques generate an image using the spectral information defined by the energy windows or energy bins.