Contemporary outpatient percutaneous coronary intervention: feasible and safe.

Background: Outpatient percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is safe in selected low risk population. Drug eluting stents (DESs) have expanded the indications of PCI to include more complex anatomies and multivessel disease.

Hypothesis: Outpatient PCI strategy (transfemoral access with manual sheath removal) is feasible and safe in the era wide utilization of DES.

Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 gene polymorphisms in Behçet's disease.

Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) gene polymorphisms have been implicated in the susceptibility to inflammatory diseases, including multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease. The expression of both soluble and tissue ICAM-1 is increased in Behçet's disease (BD) but the contribution of ICAM-1 gene polymorphisms to this disease remains unknown. Associations with BD have been reported for genes within the MHC, including HLA-B51, TNF and MICA, but the role of non-MHC genes in BD remains largely unexplored.

HLA and tumour necrosis factor (TNF) polymorphisms in ocular Behçet's disease.

The role of HLA-B*51 and other major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes in Behçet's disease (BD) remains unknown. We have performed HLA and tumour necrosis factor (TNF) polymorphism analysis in BD and evaluated their contribution to ocular disease. In this study, 102 patients and 115 controls of Middle Eastern descent were investigated by HLA and B*51 subtyping using novel primers, and by LT alpha NCo 1 and TNF 308 promoter polymorphism analysis.

Factor V Leiden mutation is associated with ocular involvement in Behçet disease.

Purpose: Behçet disease is a systemic disease of young adults characterized by venous occlusion in both the deep venous and retinal circulations. In severe ocular disease, blindness may occur despite immunosuppressive treatment. The most common inherited risk factor for the development of idiopathic venous thrombosis is the presence of the Factor V (FV Leiden) mutation, which confers resistance to activated protein C.

Mitral balloon valvuloplasty using a retrograde transventricular approach via the brachial artery.

Mitral balloon valvuloplasty was performed successfully in two patients with moderately severe mitral stenosis by using a retrograde transventricular arterial approach. This technique is less costly and less time consuming as compared with the transseptal technique. It avoids the creation of an atrial septal defect, which can result in significant left to right shunt that can make interpretation of haemodynamic data difficult.

Collateral vessels between the coronary and bronchial arteries in patients with cyanotic congenital heart disease.

Selective coronary arteriography (using the Sones technique) was performed in 67 patients with congenital heart disease aged 1 to 33 years. Five of the 23 patients with cyanotic congenital heart disease had collateral vessels between the coronary and bronchial arteries; none of the 44 patients with noncyanotic congenital heart disease had such vessels. Each of the five patients with collateral vessels had severe obstruction of the right ventricular outflow tract or the pulmonary valve plus a ventricular septal defect and a right to left shunt.