Myocardial contrast echocardiographic diagnosis and follow-up of interventricular septal hematoma after retrograde intervention for a chronic total occlusion of a right coronary artery: a case report.

Background: Chronic total occlusion percutaneous coronary interventions (CTO-PCI) can be highly complex and are associated with an increased risk of complications. Coronary perforation (CP) is one of the most feared complications of CTO-PCI. Awareness of the potential consequence, as well as meticulous attention to patient monitoring, can aid in rapid treatment if it happens. We present a unique case covering myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) characterization of interventricular septal hematoma secondary to CP associated with decompression of the hematoma into the left ventricle cavity and a favorable clinical outcome. Case Description: This is a case of a patient with no space-occupying effect in interventricular septum before CTO-PCI showed severe chest pain after PCI. Bedside echocardiography showed thickening of the interventricular septum with the anechoic area, and contrast-enhanced echocardiography suggested the presence of interventricular septal hematoma and coronary-ventricular fistula. It was considered that retrograde CTO-PCI led to CP, which developed into an interventricular septal hematoma. The hematoma obstructed the right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) to a lesser amount; at the same time, the perforated coronary artery created a fistula with the left ventricle, resulting in perfusion damage and myocardial ischemia to some extent, although the patient's vital signs remained stable. Therefore, conservative treatment was carried out under close observation. The patient stayed stable. The hematoma was absorbed 7 days after the operation, and completely absorbed 1 month later. Conclusions: Although most cases of myocardial hematoma caused by CP can be treated conservatively without causing acute hemodynamic damage, a myocardial hematoma can progress at any time. Closely monitoring the changes in patients' symptoms and vital signs; mastering the location of the perforated coronary artery, the size of the hematoma and the hemodynamic abnormalities can help clinicians quickly make further treatment plans. Echocardiography coupled with contrast-enhanced ultrasonography, which is non-invasive, safe, cost-effective, and bedside-operable may accurately indicate the location, size of the hematoma, whether there is a shunt, as well as observe the hemodynamic changes and myocardial perfusion in real-time.

Systematic analysis of myocardial immune progression in septic cardiomyopathy: Immune-related mechanisms in septic cardiomyopathy.

Background: The immune infiltration and molecular mechanisms underlying septic cardiomyopathy (SC) have not been completely elucidated. This study aimed to identify key genes related to SC and elucidate the potential molecular mechanisms. Methods: The weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA), linear models for microarray analysis (LIMMA), protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, CIBERSORT, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway (KEGG), and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were applied to assess the key pathway and hub genes involved in SC. Results: We identified 10 hub genes, namely, LRG1, LCN2, PTX3, E LANE, TCN1, CLEC4D, FPR2, MCEMP1, CEACAM8, and CD177. Furthermore, we used GSEA for all genes and online tools to explore the function of the hub genes. Finally, we took the intersection between differential expression genes (DEGs) and hub genes to identify LCN2 and PTX3 as key genes. We found that immune-related pathways played vital roles in SC. LCN2 and PTX3 were key genes in SC progression, which mainly showed an anti-inflammatory effect. The significant immune cells in cardiomyocytes of SC were neutrophils and M2 macrophages. Conclusion: These cells may have the potential to be prognostic and therapeutic targets in the clinical management of SC. Excessive anti-inflammatory function and neutrophil infiltration are probably the primary causes of SC.

A deep learning approach with temporal consistency for automatic myocardial segmentation of quantitative myocardial contrast echocardiography.

Quantitative myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) has been proved to be valuable in detecting myocardial ischemia. During quantitative MCE analysis, myocardial segmentation is a critical step in determining accurate region of interests (ROIs). However, traditional myocardial segmentation mainly relies on manual tracing of myocardial contours, which is time-consuming and laborious. To solve this problem, we propose a fully automatic myocardial segmentation framework that can segment myocardial regions in MCE accurately without human intervention. A total of 100 patients' MCE sequences were divided into a training set and a test set according to a 7: 3 proportion for analysis. We proposed a bi-directional training schema, which incorporated temporal information of forward and backward direction among frames in MCE sequences to ensure temporal consistency by combining convolutional neural network with recurrent neural network. Experiment results demonstrated that compared with a traditional segmentation model (U-net) and the model considering only forward temporal information (U-net + forward), our framework achieved the highest segmentation precision in Dice coefficient (U-net vs U-net + forward vs our framework: 0.78 ± 0.07 vs 0.79 ± 0.07 vs 0.81 ± 0.07, p < 0.01), Intersection over Union (0.65 ± 0.09 vs 0.66 ± 0.09 vs 0.68 ± 0.09, p < 0.01), and lowest Hausdorff Distance (32.68 ± 14.6 vs 28.69 ± 13.18 vs 27.59 ± 12.82 pixel point, p < 0.01). In the visual grading study, the performance of our framework was the best among these three models (52.47 ± 4.29 vs 54.53 ± 5.10 vs 57.30 ± 4.73, p < 0.01). A case report on a randomly selected subject for perfusion analysis showed that the perfusion parameters generated by using myocardial segmentation of our proposed framework were similar to that of the expert annotation. The proposed framework could generate more precise myocardial segmentation when compared with traditional methods. The perfusion parameters generated by these myocardial segmentations have a good similarity to that of manual annotation, suggesting that it has the potential to be utilized in routine clinical practice.

Epicardial collateral channel for retrograded recanalization of chronic total occlusion percutaneous coronary intervention: Predictors of failure and procedural outcome.

OBJECTIVES: This study set out to identify significant lesion features of chronic total occlusion (CTO) that predict successful retrograde recanalization via epicardial collateral channels (CCs). BACKGROUND: Epicardial CCs remain essential in retrograde percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) of CTO. However, the unpredictability of success and occurrence of complications limit the application of epicardial CCs for retrograde PCI technique for CTO. METHODS: 103 retro-recanalization cases were analyzed using epicardial CCs with successful recanalization as an end point. Clinical and angiography data were collected. RESULTS: The total success rate was 76.3%. Independent predictors associated with technical success included CCs tortuosity, side branch at CCs tortuosity, inadequate CCs Size and inadequate CCs exit location. Assigning a score of one for each variable, four levels of difficulty were obtained and formed the EPI-CTO score (Epicardial CTO). This score had significant predictive value for the likelihood of successful recanalization (AUC: 0.94, 95%CI: 0.89-0.98). Coronary and CCs perforation occurred in 6 and 10 cases respectively. Four cases including two coronary and two CCs perforations had tamponade that needed pericardiocentesis. CONCLUSIONS: Using epicardial CCs for retrograde approach of CTO PCI is effective. Complication rate was acceptable. We found four independent predictors relative to procedure success.

Usefulness and Safety of a Novel Modification of the Retrograde Approach for the Long Tortuous Chronic Total Occlusion of Coronary Arteries.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of the Guidezilla guide extension catheter in a reverse controlled antegrade and retrograde subintimal tracking (CART) technique for chronic total occlusion (CTO) recanalization.We retrospectively collected 80 CTO cases using reverse CART technology from January 2015 to October 2015 and 20 CTO cases using Guidezilla reverse-CART technology from October 2015 to March 2016. Guidezilla was applied in cases when it was difficult to advance a retro-guidewire through an occlusion segment into the antegrade guide catheter.The Guidezilla group had more cases with an occlusion longer > 20 mm (100.0% versus 72.5%, P = 0.005) and "bending > 45°" (90.0% versus 63.7%, P = 0.029) than the non-Guidezilla group, while the non-Guidezilla group had more retry lesions (25.0% versus 63.8%, P = 0.002). The septal collateral channel was the preferred choice for retro-recanalization in both groups (90.0% in Guidezilla group and 68.8% in non-Guidezilla group). All cases in the Guidezilla group achieved technical success with a TIMI 3 flow in the distal true lumen (100.0% versus 75.0% in non-Guidezilla group, P = 0.010). Cardiac tamponade and perforation in the epicardial artery was observed in 1 case each in the Guidezilla group. In the non-Guidezilla group, 19 complications occurred during the PCI procedure. No target vessel revascularization or in-hospital death occurred in either group.CTO lesions using the Guidezilla guide extension catheter to facilitate entry to an antegrade catheter in reverse CART technology is convenient and safe with a high success rate.

Clinical Prediction Score for Successful Retrograde Procedure in Chronic Total Occlusion Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.

OBJECTIVE: To develop and validate a prediction score for a successful retrograde procedure in chronic total occlusion (CTO) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). METHODS: A total of 228 CTO lesions in 223 patients who underwent PCI by retrograde approach were analyzed. All subjects were randomly grouped to a derivation set and a validation set at a ratio of 2:1. A successful retrograde procedure was set as the end point. Each of the identified predictors for the end point by logistic regression was assigned 1 point and summed. RESULTS: Independent predictors of a successful retrograde procedure were Werner's score [odds ratio (OR) 4.841, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.952-12.005, p = 0.001], diameter of distal CTO segment (OR 5.263, 95% CI 2.067-13.398, p < 0.001) and tortuous collateral (type b; OR 0.119, 95% CI 0.032-0.444, p = 0.002). The predictive model developed in the derivation set stratified the difficulty of achieving a successful retrograde procedure into 4 grades - very difficult (10.5%), difficult (23.7%), intermediate (50.7%) and easy (15.1%) - and was demonstrated significantly in the validation set: very difficult (15.8%), difficult (18.4%), intermediate (47.4%) and easy (18.4%). The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve was 0.832 ± 0.042 for the derivation set and 0.912 ± 0.041 for the validation set with an almost equal performance. CONCLUSIONS: According to the experience of our center, this model performed excellently in predicting the difficulty in achieving a successful retrograde procedure.