Twelve-month clinical outcomes of sirolimus-eluting stent in coronary artery disease: An experience in real-world Indian patients.

OBJECTIVE: Supraflex (Sahajanand Medical Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Surat, India) is the latest generation of biodegradable polymer-coated sirolimus-eluting coronary stent designed on ultra-thin (60 µm) cobalt-chromium platform with flexible 'S-link.' The present study was designed to establish the safety and clinical performance of Supraflex in real-world Indian patients with coronary artery disease. METHODS: The study included 839 consecutive patients with coronary artery disease who were implanted with Supraflex from January 2014 to August 2017 at six different tertiary care centers in India. Follow-up was performed at 30 days, 6 months, and 12 months after the index procedure. The primary end-point of the study was the incidence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE), a composite of cardiac death, myocardial infarction (MI), and target lesion revascularization (TLR) at the 12-month follow-up. The occurrence of stent thrombosis was analyzed as safety end-point. RESULTS: A total of 1025 lesions were treated by implantation of 1098 Supraflex stents. At the 12-month follow-up, MACE was 4.92%, including 7 (0.86%) cardiac deaths, 16 (1.97%) MI, and 17 (2.09%) TLR. Only three incidences of stent thrombosis were found at the 12-month follow-up. CONCLUSION: The study results showed excellent safety and clinical effectiveness of Supraflex in a high proportion of high-risk real-world Indian patients with coronary artery disease.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

A well executed transseptal puncture is crucial for successful percutaneous transvenous mitral balloon valvotomy. We report a case of accidentally damaged Mullins sheath dilator. Due to immediate unavailability of another dilator at cardiac catheterization laboratory, angioplasty guidewire and balloon was used as an additional assisting armamentarium for successful percutaneous transvenous mitral balloon valvotomy.

Successful transradial percutaneous coronary intervention in a patient with dextrocardia and situs inversus.

Dextrocardia with situs inversus is a rare clinical entity with an estimated incidence ranges from 1 in 8000 to 1 in10,000. Percutaneous intervention in patient with dextrocardia and situs inversus is clinically challenging due to abnormal orientation of coronary geometry and the intervention requires appropriate use of guiding catheters, engagement technique, appropriate radiological angles as well as views. In this case-report, we describe percutaneous intervention with stenting in 48-year-old male patient with dextrocardia and situs inversus. We successfully deployed drug-eluting stents in right coronary artery and left circumflex artery.

Subclinical atherosclerosis in rheumatoid arthritis in India.

OBJECTIVE: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have high cardiovascular morbidity and mortality as compared to the general population. Indians are also at increased risk of developing early and severe atherosclerotic coronary artery disease. Carotid intima-media thickness as measured by ultrasound is a validated surrogate marker of atherosclerosis. We studied the prevalence of subclinical atherosclerosis in Indian patients with RA. METHODS: Common carotid IMT (CCA IMT) was measured at the level of carotid bifurcation along with fasting lipid profile in 57 RA patients and 45 age and sex matched controls. Values of mean CCA IMT above mean + 2 SD of the control group were defined as abnormal IMT. Variables of disease activity and severity were measured in RA patients. Patients and controls with known traditional cardiovascular risk factors were excluded from the study. Student t test and chi-square test for proportion were used for statistical analysis. A logistic regression analysis was done to find out independent predictors of abnormal IMT. RESULTS: Nineteen RA patients (33.3%) and 2 controls (4.44%) had abnormal IMT values. RA patients had significantly increased mean CCA IMT (0.558 +/- 0.137 mm) as compared to controls (0.416 +/- 0.002 mm; p < 0.0001). Age > or = 42 years, duration of disease > or= 6 years, and tender joint count > or = 5 predicted increased risk of having abnormal CCA IMT in a logistic regression analysis. CONCLUSION: One-third of Indian RA patients had subclinical atherosclerosis. Age and tender joint count were independent predictors of abnormal CCA IMT.