Mortality in primary angioplasty patients starting antiplatelet therapy with prehospital prasugrel or clopidogrel: a 1-year follow-up from the European MULTIPRAC Registry.

Aim: MULTIPRAC was designed to provide insights into the use and outcomes associated with prehospital initiation of antiplatelet therapy with either prasugrel or clopidogrel in the context of primary percutaneous coronary intervention. After a previous report on efficacy and safety outcomes during hospitalization, we report here the 1-year follow-up data, including cardiovascular (CV) mortality.

Methods And Results: MULTIPRAC is a multinational, prospective registry of patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) from 25 hospitals in nine countries, all of which had an established practice of prehospital start of dual antiplatelet therapy in place.

Two-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography for aortic annular sizing in patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

Background: Accurate preoperative assessment of the aortic annulus dimension is crucial for successful transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). In this study we examined the accuracy of a novel method using two-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography (2D-TEE) for measurement of the aortic annulus.

Methods: We evaluated the theoretical impact of the measurement of the annulus diameter and area using the circumcircle of a triangle method on the decision to perform the procedure and choice of the prosthesis size.