A rare complication of cerebral venous thrombosis during simple percutaneous coronary intervention: A case report.

Rationale: Cerebrovascular accidents (CVAs) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), although rare, are associated with high in-hospital morbidity and mortality rates. Cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) is an uncommon cause of CVAs compared with arterial disease but is associated with favorable outcomes in most cases. We present a rare case of CVT following a simple PCI procedure with stent implantation, which has not been previously reported in the literature.

Automatic Detection of Atherosclerotic Plaque and Calcification From Intravascular Ultrasound Images by Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks.

Atherosclerosis is the major cause of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is a common imaging modality for diagnosing CVDs. However, an efficient analyzer for IVUS image segmentation is required for assisting cardiologists.

Comparison of ejection fraction calculation between CT and SPECT at high heart rate: A dynamic cardiac phantom study.

The purpose of this study is to compare the ejection fraction (EF) calculation of CT and SPECT at high heart rate. A dynamic cardiac phantom with programmable end-systolic volume (ESV), end-diastolic volume (EDV), and heart rate was used to compare CT, which has high spatial resolution (< 1 mm) and modest temporal resolution of 175 msec, and SPECT, which has high temporal resolution of 16 bins per cardiac cycle but poor spatial resolution (> 1 cm) in EF, ESV, and EDV at the heart rates ≤ 100 bpm for EF = 30 (disease state) and EF = 60 (healthy state). EF calculations for SPECT were accurate in 2% for 40 to 100 bpm for both EF = 30 and EF = 60, and were not heart rate dependent although both ESV and EDV could be underestimated by 18-20%.

The Utilization of Stress Tests Prior to Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for Stable Coronary Artery Disease in Taiwan.

Background: Ischemia shown in non-invasive tests is considered to be a fundamental requirement for treating patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) with a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). In a nationwide cohort, we investigated the utilization of stress tests, including myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), treadmill exercise test (TET) and stress echocardiography (SE) prior to elective PCI.

Methods: This retrospective study used the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000 (LHID2000) of the National Health Insurance program in Taiwan.

Percutaneous Transluminal Angioplasty and Stenting for Hepatic Vessel Stenosis after Orthotopic Liver Transplantation.

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of vascular intervention in percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) for the treatment of hepatic artery and hepatic vein stenosis after liver transplantation (LT), including thrombotic total occluded lesions.

Methods: Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty after orthotopic liver transplantation was performed to re-open hepatic vessel lesions. We daily used routine Doppler ultrasound during admission for early detection of graft hepatic vessel lesions, including hepatic artery and vein lesions.

Prognostic Value of Functional Variables as Assessed by Gated Thallium-201 Myocardial Perfusion Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography for Major Adverse Cardiac Events in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease.

Purpose: Gated single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) using thallium-201 (Tl-201) has the capacity to evaluate the earlier post-stress (PS) function compared to technetium-99m labeled tracers, and may be more sensitive in detecting transient ventricular dysfunction caused by stress-induced ischemia. The purpose of this study was to assess the prognostic value of functional variables obtained from Tl-201 gated SPECT as a predictor of major adverse cardiac events (MACE).

Methods: Four hundred and thirty-eight subjects who had known or suspected coronary artery disease and underwent clinically indicated dipyridamole-stress electrocardiography-gated Tl-201 SPECT were included in this study.

Stress-induced myocardial ischemia is associated with early post-stress left ventricular mechanical dyssynchrony as assessed by phase analysis of 201Tl gated SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging.

Purpose: In (201)Tl SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) data are acquired shortly after the stress injection to assess early post-stress left ventricle (LV) function. The purpose of this study was to use (201)Tl SPECT MPI to investigate whether stress-induced myocardial ischemia is associated with LV mechanical dyssynchrony.

Methods: Enrolled in the study were 75 patients who were referred for dipyridamole stress and rest (201)Tl gated SPECT MPI.

Stent graft used to rescue coronary rupture during percutaneous coronary intervention for myocardial bridge.

Myocardial bridge (MB) is a congenital variation of the coronary arteries and the segment of the coronary artery through myocardium is compressed during systole. Although it is relatively asymptomatic, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) may be necessary to relieve symptoms. Perforation or frank rupture of coronary arteries occurs rarely in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention.

Vegetation on patent foramen ovale presenting as a cryptogenic brain abscess.

This paper describes a case of 51-year-old man with a vegetation on his patent foramen ovale presenting with a cryptogenic brain abscess. He received surgical evacuation and was successfully managed with septal occlusion. This is the first reported case of cryptogenic brain abscess caused by a vegetation on a patent foramen ovale directly documented with transesophageal echocardiography.