As 2006 comes to an end and as everyone ventures into 2007, Cardiovascular Revascularization Medicine (CRM) remains committed to the mission of providing state-of-the-art content in accordance with the multidisciplinary format of the journal, which includes vascular brachytherapy—the main focus of CRM since its birth.
Over the last year, we have experienced an abundance of information related to drug-eluting stents, which have essentially minimized restenosis rates and the need for vascular brachytherapy. This technology, however, has also been associated with late stent thrombosis and late recurrences of restenosis—two phenomena seen also with vascular brachytherapy. Late stent thrombosis has been the main topic of cardiology conferences in the last quarter of 2006; therefore, in 2007, CRM will dedicate a special issue to this subject, which will include a report from the December 2006 Food and Drug Administration Panel Special Session. We call out to all investigators to submit to CRM manuscripts, case reports, and preclinical data related to drug-eluting late stent thrombosis.
You will find three noteworthy clinical original articles in our last issue of 2006. The first, by Witkowski et al., aims to test the impact of acute lumen overdilation on neointimal hyperplasia and late lumen size after vascular brachytherapy for in-stent restenosis. The next, by Javaid et al., seeks to compare the adequacy of paclitaxel-eluting stent and sirolimus-eluting stent expansion based on intravascular ultrasound imaging criteria at conventional delivery pressures. The third, by Cagli et al., aims to determine whether prophylactic use of calcium dobesilate can improve venous function after saphenous vein harvest in coronary artery bypass graft.
In our next section (Cell Therapy), Jyotsna et al. report on the results of a pilot study using progenitor cells in five patients with acute myocardial infarction, while Baffour et al. test the hypothesis that bone-marrow-derived growth factors, together with cell-to-cell contact between bone-marrow-derived stem cells and cardiomyocytes or myoblasts, promote the proliferation of cardiomyocytes and myoblasts.
Our review articles include a submission by Capuano et al., in which the authors review spontaneous coronary artery dissection, a rare condition occurring usually in relatively young patients (predominantly females) that seldom could be a cause of acute myocardial ischemia leading to sudden cardiac death. In their submission, Ajani et al. briefly review evidence supporting the selective aldosterone antagonist eplerenone and follow it up with a discussion on the clinical implications of aldosterone antagonists in patients with heart failure after myocardial infarction. Sheikh et al., in their submission, prospectively survey the indications, frequency, and complications associated with the use of glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors in percutaneous coronary intervention in a tertiary center setting.
In our case reports, Capuano et al. follow up their review article with the case report of a 56-year-old man with acute myocardial infarction who was successfully treated with systemic thrombolysis in a peripheral hospital. Sato et al. report on the case of a 54-year-old man who was referred for assessment of an oval calcified mass in the left middle mediastinum on chest X-ray. Next, Cardaioli et al. report a case of a massive embolism of atheromatous material during the stenting of tight renal artery stenosis, which was addressed with a distal embolic protection device and aggressive aspiration of blood through a guiding catheter. In their case, Movahed et al. demonstrate the importance of using multiple imaging modalities in the evaluation of ventricular function. Matsuo et al. report on the case of an HIV-positive 32-year-old male presenting with superior vena cava syndrome who underwent multislice computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, which showed a large tumor in the right atrium extending to the superior vena cava. Finally, Mezzapelle et al. present a case of recurrent acute in-stent thrombosis in a 57-year-old man with mild antithrombin III deficiency despite the combined administration of clopidogrel and aspirin.
Our image of the issue, by Rigatelli et al., depicts the case of recurrent acute in-stent thrombosis in a 57-year-old man with mild antithrombin III deficiency despite the combined administration of clopidogrel and aspirin.
We would like to announce that CRM will be the official journal of the Cardiovascular Revascularization Therapies (CRT) meeting held annually in Washington, DC. Selected faculty from the meeting will continue to serve as the journal's editorial board. In addition, the first authors of abstracts accepted into the CRT meeting will receive a free CRM subscription. With these upcoming changes, we anticipate a stronger CRM journal in 2007 and beyond.
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