Left Ventricular Hypertrophy Regression Following Transcatheter Aortic Replacement: A Comparison of Self-Expanding Versus Balloon-Expandable Prostheses.

There are limited reports on the impact of prosthesis-patient mismatch (PPM) on the regression of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). We compared the relative effects of supra-annular, self-expanding (SE) versus intra-annular, balloon-expandable (BE) prostheses on TAVR LVH regression. Regression of left ventricular mass index (LVMi) was evaluated in 168 consecutive TAVR patients, including 60 treated with SE valves (Evolut series) and 108 treated with BE valves (Sapien 3).

Stress-first Myocardial Perfusion Imaging.

Stress-first approaches to myocardial perfusion imaging provide diagnostically and prognostically accurate perfusion data equivalent to a full rest-stress study, save time in the imaging laboratory, and reduce the radiation exposure to patients and laboratory staff. Converting a nuclear cardiology laboratory from a conventional rest-stress strategy to a stress-first approach involves challenges such as the need for attenuation correction, triage of patients to an appropriate protocol, real-time review of stress images, and consideration of differential reimbursement.

Multi-bed vascular disease and atherothrombosis: scope of the problem.

While atherosclerosis has traditionally been divided into three types of disease, coronary artery or coronary heart disease (CHD), cerebrovascular disease, and peripheral vascular or peripheral arterial disease (PAD), it is now clear that atherosclerosis is a systemic disease caused by the same pathologic processes regardless of the vascular bed involved. The burden of disease is enormous both in the US and around the world with 61,800,000 Americans affected with one or more types of CVD, responsible for 958,775 deaths annually at a cost of approximately US 329.2 billion dollars annually.