We are pleased to present an interesting and provocative issue to close out the 10th volume of CRM. If you have followed the journal for the last 10 years, you may have noticed the improvement in quality and diversity of the manuscripts. The journal is now distributed to the attendees of our annual Cardiovascular Research Technologies (CRT) meeting and serves as the official journal of the meeting. In this issue you will find part 2 of 2 of our special feature – Select Abstracts from CRT 2009, held March 4-6 in Washington, DC. Topics include emerging devices and innovative therapies; structural heart disease; acute myocardial infarction; devices for PCI; critical limb ischemia; acute coronary syndrome; and angiomyogenesis and cell therapy.
Among the featured manuscripts you will find the presentation of a novel passive coated stent technology. Capodanno et al. aimed to compare short-term outcomes of patients treated with the CATANIA™ stent to those treated with bare metal stents since the potential for the CATANIA™ stent to be an alternative to both bare metal stents and drug-eluting stents was recently demonstrated in the Assessment of The Latest Non Thrombogenic Angioplasty stent (ATLANTA) first-in-human study. As reimbursement for carotid stenting is under scrutiny by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, carotid artery stenting in persons aged ≥80 remains a controversial procedure despite an emerging abundance of trial data showing both safety and efficacy. Chrysant et al. report one-year follow-up both clinically and with ultrasonography in a small cohort of patients with an average age of 85 years. Abi-Saleh et al. sought to evaluate the effects of manual thrombectomy on myocardial reperfusion performed during percutaneous coronary intervention ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction and found that manual thrombectomy using a 6F Export aspiration catheter (Medtronic Corporation, Santa Rosa, CA) is safe and effective in establishing myocardial reperfusion after ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction.
Recent clinical studies have evaluated optical coherence tomography to evaluate neointimal coverage, but pathologic correlation in an animal model is lacking. In our sole biology original article, Mills et al. assessed the hypothesis that optical coherence tomography could accurately assess early neointimal coverage in a porcine model. On day 4 of the study, investigators found that the optical coherence tomography imaging accurately assessed the extent and thickness of early neointimal coverage with good pathologic correlation. In their submission, Hur et al. review the incidence, location, underlying pathology, and possible clinical sequelae of late-acquired incomplete stent apposition, primarily focusing on that of drug-eluting stents through current literature and through their own core lab experiences. In our novel technology submission, Kumar and Mathew assert that the analysis performed in their paper may aid in understanding a stent’s tolerable pressure ranges in comparison with the physiological pressures exerted by the heart and cardiac blood flow during abnormal cardiovascular conditions. In the first of two case reports an example of late formation of coronary artery aneurysm by sirolimus-coated coronary stent is presented by Övünç et al. Kaluski et al. then discuss a case in which “funneling” was used – a method using two overlapping stents to optimize stenting of small vessels.
Over the last year we have seen a growing interest in the field of platelet resistance and responsiveness. With the recent approval for marketing of Effient (prasugrel) by the FDA, completion of enrollment into the GRAVITAS study, and the pipeline of antiplatelet agents and studies, we are calling for manuscripts that discuss platelet responsiveness, which may change the practice landscape when it comes to antiplatelet therapy. We look forward to hearing about your experiences and learning your opinions about these new agents.
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