We are delighted to present the first issue of 2007, which marks the eighth year of Cardiovascular Revascularization Medicine. As of 2007, the Journal will be designated the official journal of the Cardiovascular Revascularization Therapies meeting held annually in Washington, DC. The Journal is still committed to presenting interesting manuscripts on vascular brachytherapy since ours is the only journal remaining that covers this topic. Nevertheless, stent thrombosis of drug-eluting stents continues to be a main interest for the interventional cardiology community and we encourage you to send us manuscripts on the topic, as we are planning to dedicate a specific issue of the Journal related to this topic.
In our first issue of 2007, you will find a summary of the Food and Drug Administration's meeting of the Circulatory System Devices Advisory Panel in December 2006, where sustained concerns about the rate of drug-eluting stent thrombosis were discussed. We then present four diverse clinical original articles. The first is by Novaro et al., in which 64 consecutive patients, presenting with an acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction who underwent mechanical reperfusion with implantation of a drug-eluting stent, were studied. The next, by Kuiper et al., aimed to examine the efficacy of best treatment with intracoronary brachytherapy for in-stent restenosis in patients at high-risk for future recurrence. Lindsay et al. then discuss the effect of preprocedure blood glucose, hemoglobin A1c, and insulin levels on clinical restenosis rate (target vessel revascularization) 9 months following percutaneous coronary intervention in 145 patients.
In their cell therapy submission, Grogaard et al. aimed to compare the efficacy of intracoronary and intravenous injection of autologous progenitor cells for homing to the acutely infarcted but reperfused myocardium in pigs. Kutryk et al., in their biology original article, sought to determine the effects of different doses of γ-emitting radioactive stents on intimal hyperplasia at 28 days in a porcine coronary stent model.
In new technology, Ikeno et al., within a porcine coronary model, compare a novel stent system (Petal™), which incorporates a side aperture with deployable struts, to the prior stent version having only the side aperture (SLK-View).
Two submissions compose our review articles section. The first, by Collins et al., concludes that the encouraging results of early clinical cell therapy studies have not been sustained by subsequent robust studies, and that these findings suggest that many unanswered questions need to be addressed before cell therapy becomes an acceptable adjunctive treatment for heart failure. In the second submission, Elahi et al. review the physiological advantages and clinical outcomes of cardiopulmonary bypass for myocardial revascularization and examines whether either strategy is superior and in which patients.
In the first of five case reports, Sato et al. present results of multidetector-row computed tomography that was performed in a 22-year-old woman who had exercise-induced myocardial ischemia. Mezzapelle et al. discuss a case of a coronary bifurcation treated by the culotte technique and paclitaxel-eluting stent deployment. Hara et al. then describe a patient with right common iliac artery occlusion who presented with intermittent claudication and who underwent percutaneous transluminal angioplasty. Clark et al. report two cases of very late (>1 year; 17 and 23 months) angiographic stent thrombosis after successful drug-eluting stent implantation. Lastly, Capuano et al. report on a 62-year-old woman with long-standing systemic arterial hypertension and angina pectoris radiated to the left arm precipitated by exercise.
In our image of the issue, Hara et al. provide a rare image of a porcelain heart resulting from rheumatic pancarditis. Three-dimensional volume rendering technique imaging reveals massive calcification of the entire heart, creating a pottery appearance.
As the Journal becomes more diversified in content, we hope it reaches more readers and remains a useful platform of communication for clinicians, scientists, and health care professionals. We hope that you will find the current issue interesting and stimulating.
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