Thank you for being with us as we bid farewell to 2009 and enter into the journal's 11th year. In the last quarter of 2009, we unfortunately had to say goodbye to two great cardiologists who each made a significant impact on the field. Dr. Donald Baim, interventional cardiologist and chief medical and scientific officer at Boston Scientific, had a stellar academic career. He published nearly 300 scientific papers on interventional technology and edited a leading textbook, Grossman's Cardiac Catheterization, Angiography and Intervention, now in its seventh edition. He served as the principal investigator on dozens of interventional cardiology clinical trials and was a founder of or a key contributor to over 20 startup companies and medical device incubators. We also remember Dr. William Ganz, whose groundbreaking research included the development of the Swan–Ganz catheter and intracoronary thrombolysis. Dr. Ganz came to Cedars–Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 1966, and in 1973, he and Dr. Jeremy (HJC) Swan invented the Swan–Ganz catheter for hemodynamic monitoring. During the 1980s, Ganz and Dr. Prediman K. Shah conducted the first studies of coronary thrombolysis in myocardial infarction patients, and in 1990, his research showed that reperfusion of otherwise-viable myocardium does not expand necrosis. Both Baim and Ganz leave us with a tremendous amount of knowledge that will continue to impact our field.
This issue of the journal features four original clinical articles: Abdel-Salam and Nammas explore the prognostic power of certain patient characteristics to predict eventual contractile recovery after revascularization in patients with prior myocardial infarction. In their prospective, single-center, single-blinded, randomized control study in a patient model of ischemic reperfusion injury, Yogaratnam et al. aim to investigate the clinical effects of hyperbaric oxygen preconditioning prior to coronary artery bypass graft surgery and ischemic reperfusion injury. Next, Waksman et al. designed a study to investigate associations between respiratory stress response and significant coronary artery disease and to evaluate the value of respiratory stress response as a novel tool for the identification of individuals with significant coronary artery disease. Finally, Rigatelli et al. assess the effectiveness of transcatheter patent foramen ovale closure in reducing or curing migraine with aura in patients with previous paradoxical embolism in relation with specific interatrial septum anatomy and different closure devices.
Two review articles are also included. Zoccai et al. provide a concise and updated review on percutaneous coronary revascularization in patients with symptomatic small vessel coronary artery disease. Thomas and Giugliano focus on the management of patients with non-ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction during the first 24 h of presentation and present a clinical scenario to illustrate the current, guideline-based management strategy. McCann et al. report two cases of late occurring drug-eluting stent thrombosis where coronary angiography failed to identify the cause but intravascular ultrasound revealed underlying mechanical problems with the initial stent deployment. Three patients in whom selective renal arteriography identified a new anatomic vascular variant―a common trunk of the inferior phrenic arteries arising from the right renal artery―are then discussed by Topaz et al. Finally, Luna et al. report the case of a 59-year-old man with cryptogenic stroke who was found to have both an ostium secundum atrial septal defect and a patent foramen ovale by intracardiac echocardiography. Our image of the issue, presented by Sgueglia et al., depicts a coronary angiography that revealed a critical stenosis of the ramus intermedius with a high thrombus burden, which required excimer laser angioplasty while thrombus vaporization and underlying plaque debulking were concurrently obtained.
We hope you find this issue interesting, and we look forward to a productive 2010. It is our hope that you continue to support our efforts with your outstanding manuscript submissions. Thanks to all of you, and we wish you a terrific 2010.
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