A comparative study of shockwave intravascular lithotripsy and conventional percutaneous coronary intervention in the treatment of severe coronary artery calcification lesions.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of intravascular lithotripsy (IVL) in the treatment of severe coronary artery calcification (CAC) lesions. METHODS: In this study, we selected patients diagnosed with severe CAC lesions confirmed by coronary angiography (CAG) who were hospitalized in Yulin First People's Hospital between December 2021 and December 2022 and required percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Using a random number table, we divided all patients into the IVL group and the PCI group in the order of interventional therapy. We compared both groups in terms of the surgical success rate, intraoperative manipulation characteristics, procedural complication, and cumulative incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). RESULTS: (1) There were no differences in the surgical success rate, incidence of MACE, and occurrence of procedural complication between the two groups; (2) Compared with the conventional PCI group, patients in the IVL group used fewer predilatation balloons, and the difference was statistically significant (all P < 0.05); (3) Compared with the conventional PCI group, patients in the IVL group had lesser surgery time and lesser radiation time, with lesser proportion of patients who were assisted with stent implantation using coronary artery rotational atherectomy, and this difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05); (4) The mean stent diameter and length in the IVL group was greater than those in the conventional PCI group but the difference was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: In this study, we found that IVL was a highly safe and effective procedure in the treatment of severe CAC lesions that did not increase the surgery and radiation time, and it could also reduce the use of predilatation balloons, thus improving the management of CAC lesions. Thus, IVL can be a novel choice in treating severe CAC lesions.

Safety of Bivalirudin Combined with Ticagrelor in the Emergency PCI in Patients with Acute ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction.

OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to investigate the application safety of bivalirudin combined with ticagrelor in the emergency percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). METHODS: From October 1, 2018, to December 30, 2019, 210 patients with STEMI admitted to the Department of Cardiology who underwent emergency PCI were randomly divided into the bivalirudin group (group A, N = 105) and the unfractionated heparin group (group B, N = 105). Before the emergency PCI operation after admission, the loading dose of aspirin (300 mg) was given orally, and then 100 mg/d. At the same time, the loading dose of ticagrelor (180 mg) was administered orally, and then 90 mg/bid. The adverse events and the hemorrhage events 30 days after the operation were observed and recorded. RESULTS: There were five hemorrhage cases in the bivalirudin group, with one case of secondary hemorrhage and four cases of mild hemorrhage. There were 14 hemorrhages in the unfractionated heparin group with one case of secondary hemorrhage and thirteen cases of mild hemorrhage. In terms of mild hemorrhage, the hemorrhage rate in the bivalirudin group was significantly lower than that in the unfractionated heparin group (3.8% vs. 12.4%, P = 0.040). One patient died in the unfractionated heparin group, while no deaths occurred in the bivalirudin group during the thirty days of follow-up. No myocardial infarction, revascularization, or stroke occurred in the two groups within 30 days after the operation. CONCLUSION: Compared with unfractionated heparin combined with ticagrelor in patients with STEMI undergoing emergency PCI treatment, bivalirudin combined with ticagrelor could significantly reduce the occurrence of mild hemorrhage events, and it would not increase the incidence of MACE during the 30 days of follow-up.

Healthcare quality and safety assessment based on annual scorekeeping.

Objective: To explore the practice of medical quality and safety evaluation system based on annual score under the background of establishing modern hospital management system and strengthening national public hospital performance evaluation. Methods: Statistical analysis was used to study the improvement of medical quality and safety in hospitals after the implementation of score evaluation, and the existing problems were analyzed according to the actual situation and related requirements. Results: The hospital's medical quality and safety evaluation system ran smoothly, the evaluation indexes could be implemented, and the evaluation results were used properly. The improvement of hospital medical quality and operation efficiency has achieved good results. Conclusion: The evaluation system of medical quality and safety for physicians and medical technicians based on annual score can achieve the whole process, all-round, personalized and information-based evaluation, and promote the high-quality development of hospitals. It is necessary to further improve the range of evaluation and carry out the evaluation of the evaluation system by relevant personnel.

Diffusion tensor imaging revealed different pathological processes of white matter hyperintensities.

BACKGROUND: Although increasing evidence showed the correlations between white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) and cognitive impairment, the relationship between them is still modest. Many researchers began to focus on the variation caused by the heterogeneity of WMH. We tried to explore the pathological heterogeneity in WMH by using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), so as to provide a new insight into the future research. METHODS: Diffusion weighted images (DWIs) of the brain were acquired from 73 patients with WMH and 18 healthy controls, which were then modeled by DTI. We measured fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) of white matter of the periventricular frontal lobe (pFL), periventricular occipital lobe (pOL), periventricular parietal lobe (pPL) and deep centrum ovales (dCO), and grouped these measures according to the Fazekas scale. Then we compared the DTI metrics of different regions with the same Fazekas scale grade. RESULTS: Significantly lower FA values (all p < 0.001), and higher MD (all p < 0.001) and RD values (all p < 0.001) were associated with WMH observed in the periventricular frontal lobe (pFL) compared to all other regions with the same Fazekas grades. The AD of WMH in the pFL was higher than that of pPL and dCO, but the differences between groups was not as high as of MD and RD, as indicated by the effect size. In the normal control group, DTI metrics between pFL and other regions were not significantly different or less significant different. The difference of DTI metrics of WMH between pPL, pOL and dCO was lower than that of normal white matter, as indicated by the effect size. CONCLUSION: Distinct pathological processes can be revealed by DTI between frontal periventricular WMH and other regions. These processes may represent the effects of severe demyelination within the frontal periventricular WMH.

Meta-analysis of Duration of Continuous Dual Antiplatelet Therapy and Late Stent Thrombosis After Second-Generation Drug Stent Implantation.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of the present study was to perform a systematic comparison of the incidence of late and extremely late stent thrombosis (ST) with short-term and long-term dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after a second-generation drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. METHODS: Randomized controlled trials using short-term and long-term DAPT and reporting late ST (30 days-1 year) and extremely late ST (longer than 1 year) after a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with DES were searched and compared in the Life Sciences and Biomedical Information Bibliographic Database (MEDLINE), EMBASE, Cochrane Central, and ClinicalTrials.com. ST was used as the primary endpoint of the therapeutic outcome, and the fixed-effects model (I2 < 50%) or random-effects model (I2 ≥ 50%) was adopted for the combined analysis. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CIs) were used to represent the results. P < 0.05 in the combined result indicated that the difference was statistically significant. RESULTS: A total of five randomized controlled trials consisting of 7142 patients were included, with 3556 cases of short-term DAPT (at most 6 months), and 3586 cases of long-term DAPT (at least 12 months). There was no significant difference between late ST and administration duration of DAPT (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.30-3.18; P = 0.97, I2 = 0%). There was also no significant difference between the incidence of extremely late ST and the duration of DAPT application (OR 0.30, 95% CI 0.03-2.95; P = 0.31). CONCLUSION: The duration of continuous DAPT application had no effect on the occurrence of late and extremely late ST.

Thrombus aspiration catheter improve the myocardial reperfusion of STEMI patients with high thrombus load during the emergency PCI operation.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to discuss the efficacy and safety of the application of thrombus aspiration catheters during emergency PCI operations for acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients with high thrombus load. METHODS: A total of 204 patients diagnosed with acute STEMI and high thrombus load in the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017 were selected for the present study. These patients were randomly divided into two groups: thrombus catheter aspiration group (group A, n = 101), and balloon dilatation group (group B, n = 103). The blood flow of the culprit coronary artery in the thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) immediately after the emergency PCI operation in these two groups of patients was recorded. Then, an echocardiogram was performed to determine the left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDD) and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) after the operation, and data on major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) during the 30 days of postoperative follow-up were collected. RESULTS: The comparative difference between these two groups of patients in terms of hypertension, smoking, diabetes, usage rate of GPIIb/IIIa receptor antagonist, time from hospitalization to balloon dilatation (D2B) and other basic clinical data was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). The postoperative TIMI flow grade of these two groups of patients improved, and the comparative difference between the data obtained from these two groups was statistically significant (P < 0.05). The comparative difference between these two groups in terms of LVEDD and LVEF at 7 days after the operation was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). There was a difference in the occurrence rate of MACE in these two groups of patients during the 30 days of postoperative follow-up, but the comparative difference between these two groups was not statistically significant (P = 0.335). CONCLUSION: The application of thrombus aspiration catheter during the emergency PCI operation of STEMI patients with high thrombus load can better improve the myocardial reperfusion. There is no basis for increasing the stroke occurrence risk. However, it obviously fails to improve the recent prognosis and more studies need to explore its effect on myocardial remodeling and major adverse cardiovascular events.

Value of the expression of miR-208, miR-494, miR-499 and miR-1303 in early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction.

AIMS: This study aims to investigate the value of the expression of miR-208, miR-494, miR-499 and miR-1303 in the early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). MAIN METHODS: Patients were divided into two groups: AMI group (n = 41), and Stable angina pectoris (SAP) group (n = 32). Peripheral venous blood was sampled from these patients at the time of admission (T0), 6 h after onset (T6) and 12 h after onset (T12), while blood was sampled once from healthy subjects who underwent physical examination in the same time period (control group, n = 10). The expression of miR-208, miR-494, miR-499 and miR-1303 in serum were detected by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), and differences in miRNA expression among these three groups of patients were analyzed. KEY FINDINGS: Serum miR-208, miR-494, miR-499 and miR-1303 expression levels at different time points were significantly higher in the AMI group than in the SAP group and control group. The differences among these groups were statistically significant (P < 0.05), while the difference between the SAP group and control group was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Variation trend: The miRNA levels above began to increase at T0 in the AMI group, the peak levels of miR-208, miR-494 and miR-499 appeared before T12, and the peak level of miR-1303 appeared between T6 and T12, or after T12. SIGNIFICANCE: miR-208, miR-494, miR-499 and miR-1303 were not superior to hs-cTnI as myocardial markers in the diagnosis of early acute myocardial infarction.