Transient lateral rectus palsy associated with acute coronary syndrome treated with percutaneous coronary intervention: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Patients who experience angina and acute myocardial infarction often receive diagnostic coronary angiography and percutaneous coronary intervention. CASE PRESENTATION: A 54-year-old Persian man with acute coronary syndrome was admitted to the hospital and underwent elective percutaneous coronary intervention. Two hours after the procedure, the patient experienced ophthalmoplegia and diplopia. The diagnosis was abducens nerve palsy resulting in transient lateral rectus palsy. The cause is presumed to have been an ischemic event affecting the unilateral abducens nerve. This could have occurred owing to the microembolism during the percutaneous coronary intervention, which resulted in left lateral rectus palsy. Within 1 month, the diplopia was relieved completely, and the physical examination was normal. CONCLUSION: The occurrence of neuro-ophthalmic complications that may arise from percutaneous coronary intervention is extremely rare. To our knowledge, this is the second reported case of unilateral rectus palsy associated with percutaneous coronary intervention.

Evaluation of myocardial viability by a secondary delayed 99mTc-MIBI nuclear scanning in ST-elevation myocardial infarction patients with delay in referral and nonviable myocardium in the first scintigraphy: a preliminary cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: In the management of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), if the treatment has not been initiated within the first 24 h and the patient no longer exhibits any symptoms, the decision to begin revascularization therapy is based on myocardial viability. If the tissue is nonviable, current guidelines advise against further revascularization therapy; however, collateral vessels represent an alternative source of blood supply and may help the damaged tissue to resume function; though at first, this tissue may not be considered viable. Thus, in patients whose first myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS) revealed nonviable myocardium, a secondary MPS to assess viability may be beneficial and alter the course of treatment strategies. METHODS: This prospective cohort study was conducted on 30 STEMI patients referred to Mazandaran Heart Center. If no myocardial viability was found using 99mTc-MIBI MPS, the patient was referred for a secondary MPS after 3 months. RESULTS: In total, out of 30 patients, 3 became viable. There was no significant relationship between the viability of different Rentrop classes. Comparison of viability between patients with different numbers of occluded vessels showed no significant relationship. Three patients (17%) among 17 patients with Rentrop class nonzero became viable in the second MPS. Also, among four patients (13.3%) with Rentrop class three, one patient (25%) became viable and among seven patients (23.3%) with Rentrop class one, two patients (28.6%) became viable. CONCLUSION: Considering the results of this study, although nonsignificant, this subject requires further investigation to reach a definite conclusion.

Comparison of the incidence of contrast-induced nephropathy after primary PCI in patients receiving high-dose rosuvastatin and atorvastatin.

Introduction: Contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) is associated with increased disability and death. Randomized clinical trial studies have shown that short-term treatment with statins prior to cardiac intervention was capable of reducing the incidence of CIN. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the incidence of CIN after primary PCI in patients receiving high-dose rosuvastatin and atorvastatin. Methods: This clinical trial was performed in Mazandaran Heart Center Hospital on patients referred to the emergency department who underwent primary PCI with a diagnosis of STEMI. Patients received 1 cc/kg/h normal saline from PCI for up to 12 hours. Patients with EF less than or equal to 35% received intravenous normal saline at half the usual dose. SPSS software version 24 was used for data analysis. P value less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: 206 patients were included in the study that the most underlying diseases of patients (79, 38.3%) were hypertension, followed by anemia (76, 36.9%) and diabetes mellitus (52, 25.2%). Among these, in the first criterion, 10 (8.1%) and 4 patients (4.8%) were in the atorvastatin and rosuvastatin groups, respectively, which did not have a statistically significant difference (P = 0.264). Examination of GFR subgroups also showed that GFR above 30 had significant differences between the two groups. Conclusion: The use of different statins has had similar results in the prevention of CIN in patients undergoing primary PCI. Rosuvastatin has no special advantage over atorvastatin, showing that the use of any of these drugs can be useful in patients requiring angiography.

Efficacy of intravenous eptifibatide in primary percutaneous coronary intervention patients.

Early and complete restoration of blood flow in closed coronary arteries is the main goal in treating patients with myocardial infarction. Primary angioplasty is not always successful in establishing myocardial blood flow. Although the strategy of adding eptifibatide leads to better blood flow, its value as part of a routine strategy is questionable. Therefore, this study was performed to evaluate the efficacy of intravenous eptifibatide in primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) patients. This clinical, randomized, double-blind trial was performed on patients aged 20-80 years undergoing primary PCI. The patients were selected for study by convenience sampling and were randomly divided into two equal groups. The first group was treated with intravenous eptifibatide immediately before angioplasty with heparin. The second group received only coronary angioplasty with heparin. After data collection, statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 16. A total of 104 patients were enrolled in the study, and there were no statistically significant differences in terms of age (P=0.188), gender (P=0.345), risk factor (P>0.05), or history of PCI (P=0.199). Mean thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) score was not significant between the two groups after receiving the drug and performing angioplasty (P>0.05), and the rate of ejection fraction was 46.33±6.69 in patients receiving eptifibatide and 47.54±4.67 in the heparin group, which was not statistically significant (P=0.884). We found that eptifibatide improves clinical indexes in patients undergoing primary PCI, but these differences were not significant in the two groups.

Fractional Flow Reserve as a Standard of Reference for Ischemia Early After ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the present study was to assess the value of the fractional flow reserve (FFR) of the infarct-related artery (IRA) early after ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) in detecting reversible ischemia. METHODS: Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) at rest and after dipyridamole stress, and within 24 hour FFR of the IRA was performed on 69 patients 3 to 7 days after STEMI. FFR was 0.80 or less in 61 (88.4%) of them. In these patients, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was performed, and a second SPECT study was repeated within 14 days. RESULTS: SPECT showed reversible ischemia in 36 (59%) of these 61 patients, and converted to negative in 29 of them. Thus, the SPECT results of these 29 patients were defined as true positive before angioplasty and true negative after angioplasty. Considering the true-positive and true-negative SPECT results as the gold standard, the sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of the FFR of 0.80 or less compared to this gold standard were 96.7%, 100%, 100%, and 96.6%, respectively (ĸ = 0.97, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: In the early phase after STEMI, the reliability of FFR to determine residual ischemia in the IRA is very high in those patients with true-positive SPECT before and true-negative SPECT after PCI.

The estimate of average age at the onset of acute myocardial infarction in Iran: A systematic review and meta-analysis study.

BACKGROUND: Research indicates that the age of onset of first acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is an essential element in the life expectancy that has been decreasing in developing countries. There are various studies performed in Iran reporting a range of ages at time of AMI. Thus, this meta-analysis study is designed to determine the mean age at first AMI in the Iranian population. METHODS: All studies that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were reviewed using standard keywords in the databases from 2000 to 2016. Two raters verified a total of 658 articles. Sixteen studies met the inclusion criteria of this study for meta-analysis. Cochran test and I-squared (I2) were used for samples' homogeneity. Pooled estimates of mean were calculated using the random effects inverse-variance model. RESULTS: The mean age of AMI varied between 55.9 to 62.9 years among the primary studies. The pooled mean age of first AMI with a 95% confidence interval (CI) for the total sample, men, and women were 59 (58.9, 60.4), 58.7 (58.3, 59.2), and 64.2 (63.5, 64.8), respectively. CONCLUSION: Our meta-analysis shows that the mean age of first onset of AMI in Iranian people is slightly lower than that reported elsewhere; and it is lower for men than for women.