Usefulness of serum bilirubin levels as a biomarker for long-term clinical outcomes after percutaneous coronary intervention.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of serum total bilirubin on the development of adverse outcomes after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) besides high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) and N-terminal pro-B type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP). Serum total bilirubin, hs-cTnT, and NT-proBNP were analyzed in 372 patients who underwent PCI. The primary endpoint was cardiac death. There were 21 events of cardiac death during a mean of 25.8 months of follow-up. When the serum total bilirubin cut-off level (median value) was set to 0.58 mg/dL using the receiver operating characteristic curve, the sensitivity was 95.2 % and the specificity was 51.0 % for differentiating between the group with cardiac death and the group without cardiac death. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that the lower serum total bilirubin group (<0.58 mg/dL) had a significantly higher cardiac death rate than the higher serum total bilirubin group (≥0.58 mg/dL) (10.4 vs. 0.6 %, log-rank: P = 0.0001). In conclusion, low serum total bilirubin is a predictive marker for cardiac death after PCI.

Massive thoracoabdominal aortic thrombosis in a patient with iatrogenic Cushing syndrome.

Massive thoracoabdominal aortic thrombosis is a rare finding in patients with iatrogenic Cushing syndrome in the absence of any coagulation abnormality. It frequently represents an urgent surgical situation. We report the case of an 82-year-old woman with massive aortic thrombosis secondary to iatrogenic Cushing syndrome. A follow-up computed tomography scan showed a decreased amount of thrombus in the aorta after anticoagulation therapy alone.