The CRAC cohort model: A computerized low cost registry of interventional cardiology with daily update and long-term follow-up.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the reliability and low cost of a computerized interventional cardiology (IC) registry to prospectively and systematically collect high-quality data for all consecutive coronary patients referred for coronary angiogram or/and coronary angioplasty. BACKGROUND: Rigorous clinical practice assessment is a key factor to improve prognosis in IC. A prospective and permanent registry could achieve this goal but, presumably, at high cost and low level of data quality. One multicentric IC registry (CRAC registry), fully integrated to usual coronary activity report software, started in the centre Val-de-Loire (CVL) French region in 2014. METHODS: Quality assessment of CRAC registry was conducted on five IC CathLab of the CVL region, from January 1st to December 31st 2014. Quality of collected data was evaluated by measuring procedure exhaustivity (comparing with data from hospital information system), data completeness (quality controls) and data consistency (by checking complete medical charts as gold standard). Cost per procedure (global registry operating cost/number of collected procedures) was also estimated. RESULTS: CRAC model provided a high-quality level with 98.2% procedure completeness, 99.6% data completeness and 89% data consistency. The operating cost per procedure was €14.70 ($16.51) for data collection and quality control, including ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) preadmission information and one-year follow-up after angioplasty. CONCLUSIONS: This integrated computerized IC registry led to the construction of an exhaustive, reliable and costless database, including all coronary patients entering in participating IC centers in the CVL region. This solution will be developed in other French regions, setting up a national IC database for coronary patients in 2020: France PCI.

In-silico trial emulation to predict the cardiovascular protection of new lipid-lowering drugs: an illustration through the design of the SIRIUS programme.

INTRODUCTION: Inclisiran, an siRNA targeting hepatic PCSK9 mRNA, administered twice-yearly (after initial and 3-month doses), substantially and sustainably reduced LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) in Phase III trials. Whether lowering LDL-C with inclisiran translates into a reduced risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) is not yet established. In-silico trials applying a disease computational model to virtual patients receiving new treatments allow to emulate large scale long term clinical trials. The SIRIUS in-silico trial programme aims to predict the efficacy of inclisiran on CV events in individuals with established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). METHODS: A knowledge-based mechanistic model of ASCVD was built, calibrated, and validated to conduct the SIRIUS programme (NCT05974345) aiming to predict the effect of inclisiran on CV outcomes.The SIRIUS Virtual Population included patients with established ASCVD (previous myocardial infarction (MI), previous ischemic stroke (IS), previous symptomatic lower limb peripheral arterial disease (PAD) defined as either intermittent claudication with ankle-brachial index <0.85, prior peripheral arterial revascularization procedure, or vascular amputation) and fasting LDL-C ≥ 70 mg/dL, despite stable (≥ 4 weeks) well-tolerated lipid lowering therapies.SIRIUS is an in-silico multi-arm trial programme. It follows an idealized crossover design where each virtual patient is its own control, comparing inclisiran to 1) placebo as adjunct to high-intensity statin therapy with or without ezetimibe, 2) ezetimibe as adjunct to high-intensity statin therapy, 3) evolocumab as adjunct to high-intensity statin therapy and ezetimibe.The co-primary efficacy outcomes are based on time to the first occurrence of any component of 3P-MACE (composite of CV death, nonfatal MI or nonfatal IS) and time to occurrence of CV death over 5 years. PERSPECTIVES/CONCLUSION: The SIRIUS in-silico trial programme will provide early insights regarding a potential effect of inclisiran on MACE in ASCVD patients, several years before the availability of the results from ongoing CV outcomes trials (ORION-4 and VICTORION-2-P).

The SIRIUS in-silico trial programme is a knowledge-based computer model built to simulate the biological and clinical long-term effects of inclisiran, an siRNA targeting hepatic PCSK9 mRNA, on virtual patients with cardiovascular disease. Key Findings: The model accurately replicates the biological processes of cardiovascular disease and the impact of lipid-lowering therapies, allowing for the prediction of randomized clinical trials.Simulating clinical trials with virtual patients can provide insights into the efficacy and safety of new treatments before the results of randomized clinical trials, potentially speeding up the drug development process.

[Update on beta blockers in 2020]. / Mise au point sur les bêtabloquants en 2020.

Beta-blockers (BB) are an heterogenous set of molecules actively blocking ß adrenergic receptors. Their pharmacological properties depend on their various effects on the adrenergic signalling. Although they are no longer a first-choice treatment in hypertensive patients, they remain a cornerstone of pharmacological strategy in several cardiovascular diseases such as stable angina, heart failure, arrythmia and aortic related connective diseases. Beyond their usual non cardiovascular indications such as migraine, hepatic cirrhosis, glaucoma, infantile hemangioma, and hyperthyroidism, new therapeutic fields are under scrutiny. Potential BB therapeutic repurposing is being investigated in COPD and cancer patients. This narrative review first encompasses the basic pharmacological knowledge that may be useful for the clinician. Then it will detail BB main indications before exploring new therapeutic fields.

Human mesenchymal stem cells suppress induction of cytotoxic response to alloantigens.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) fail to induce allogeneic responses in mixed lymphocyte reaction assays. Because MSC express HLA class I molecules, here we investigated whether they could be recognized as allogeneic targets by cytolytic T lymphocytes (CTL). With this aim, CTL precursor (CTLp) frequencies were measured following stimulation of T cells with either allogeneic mononuclear cells (MNC) or MSC originated from the same human bone marrow donor. Lysis of MSC was measured at day 10 of culture in standard chromium release assays. In addition, allogeneic PHA blast T cells or B-EBV lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) generated from the same donor were used as positive controls of lysis. Our results showed that when allogeneic MNC were used to stimulate T cells, a high CTLp frequency was detected towards MSC targets. However, when MSC were used as stimulators, CTLp frequencies were markedly altered whatever the targets used, i.e.: MSC, PHA blast T cells or EBV-B LCLs. Moreover, when graded concentrations of MSC were added together with MNC upon stimulation of alloreactive T cells, we observed a dose-dependent decrease in CTLp frequencies towards MSC targets. This inhibition of MSC lysis was partially overcome by adding exogenous rh-IL-2 from the beginning of cultures. In addition, this suppressive effect was totally reproduced when, instead of MSC, supernatant harvested from MSC cultures was added to allogeneic MNC, upon stimulation of alloreactive T cells. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that MSC which can be recognized as targets by pre-activated alloreactive CTLs, may be able to suppress differentiation of CTL precursors into CTL effectors through secretion of suppressive factors.

Regionalization of services improves access to emergency vascular surgical care.

Management of vascular surgical emergencies requires rapid access to a vascular surgeon and hospital with the infrastructure necessary to manage vascular emergencies. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of regionalization of vascular surgery services in Toronto to University Health Network (UHN) and St Michael's Hospital (SMH) on the ability of CritiCall Ontario to transfer patients with life- and limb-threatening vascular emergencies for definitive care. A retrospective review of the CritiCall Ontario database was used to assess the outcome of all calls to CritiCall regarding patients with vascular disease from April 2003 to March 2010. The number of patients with vascular emergencies referred via CritiCall and accepted in transfer by the vascular centers at UHN or SMH increased 500% between 1 April 2003-31 December 2005 and 1 January 2006-31 March 2010. Together, the vascular centers at UHN and SMH accepted 94.8% of the 1002 vascular surgery patients referred via CritiCall from other hospitals between 1 January 2006 and 31 March 2010, and 72% of these patients originated in hospitals outside of the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network. Across Ontario, the number of physicians contacted before a patient was accepted in transfer fell from 2.9 ± 0.4 before to 1.7 ± 0.3 after the vascular centers opened. In conclusion, the vascular surgery centers at UHN and SMH have become provincial resources that enable the efficient transfer of patients with vascular surgical emergencies from across Ontario. Regionalization of services is a viable model to increase access to emergent care.

Anticoagulation in patients with atrial fibrillation undergoing coronary stent implantation.

In patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) undergoing coronary stent implantation, the optimal antithrombotic strategy is unclear. We evaluated whether use of oral anticoagulation (OAC) was associated with any benefit in morbidity or mortality in patients with AF, high risk of thromboembolism (TE) (CHA2DS2-VASC score ≥ 2) and coronary stent implantation. Among 8,962 unselected patients with AF seen between 2000 and 2010, a total of 2,709 (30%) had coronary artery disease and 417/2,709 (15%) underwent stent implantation while having CHA2DS2-VASC score ≥ 2. During follow-up (median=650 days), all TE, bleeding episodes, and major adverse cardiac events (i.e. death, acute myocardial infarction, target lesion revascularisation) were recorded. At discharge, 97/417 patients (23%) received OAC, which was more likely to be prescribed in patients with permanent AF and in those treated for elective stent implantation. The incidence of outcome event rates was not significantly different in patients treated and those not treated with OAC. However, in multivariate analysis, the lack of OAC at discharge was independently associated with increased risk of death/stroke/systemic TE (relative risk [RR] =2.18, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.02-4.67, p=0.04), with older age (RR =1.12, 1.04-1.20, p=0.003), heart failure (RR =3.26, 1.18-9.01, p=0.02), and history of stroke (RR =18.87, 3.11-111.11, p=0.001). In conclusion, in patients with AF and high thromboembolic risk after stent implantation, use of OAC was independently associated with decreased risk of subsequent death/stroke/systemic TE, suggesting that OAC should be systematically used in this patient population.

Laser guidance system for CT-guided procedures.

In a phantom and in 37 patients, a simple laser guidance system for computed tomography (CT)-guided procedures used the software program of the CT scanner and a laser beam mounted on the CT gantry without need for additional software or components. The skin entry point and angulation of the target path were determined. Then the system projected the desired needle path (including compound angulation), allowing accurate needle placement in all cases, even in small lesions.