Cardiac Rehabilitation for Patients With Stable Ischemic Heart Disease Without Revascularization　- Rationale and Design of a Single-Arm Pilot Study.

Background: Clinical practice guidelines strongly recommend optimal medical therapy (OMT), including lifestyle modification, pharmacotherapy, and exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR), in patients with stable ischemic heart disease (SIHD). However, the efficacy and safety of CR in patients with SIHD without revascularization remain unclear. Methods and Results: The Prospective Registry of STable Angina RehabiliTation (Pre-START) study is a multicenter, prospective, single-arm, open-label pilot study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of CR on health-related quality of life (HRQL), exercise capacity, and clinical outcomes in Japanese patients with SIHD without revascularization. In this study, all patients will undergo guideline-based OMT and are encouraged to have 36 outpatient CR sessions within 5 months after enrollment. The primary endpoint is the change in the Seattle Angina Questionnaire-7 summary score between baseline and the 6-month visit; an improvement of ≥5 points will be defined as a clinically important change. Secondary endpoints include changes in other HRQL scores and exercise capacity between baseline and the 6-month visit, as well as clinical outcomes between enrollment and the 6-month visit. Conclusions: The Pre-START study will provide valuable evidence to elucidate the efficacy and safety of CR in patients with SIHD and indispensable information for a subsequent randomized controlled trial. The study was registered with the University Hospital Medical Information Network (UMIN) Clinical Trials Registry (ID: UMIN000045415) on April 1, 2022.

Chest wall systemic artery-to-pulmonary artery vascular malformation treated by embolization of feeders and drainers: A case report.

A 74-year-old woman presented with progressive dyspnea. Computed tomography revealed a large systemic artery-to-pulmonary artery vascular malformation (VM) on the right chest wall. Embolization of the VM was performed. First, the main drainers of the VM were retrogradely selected from the segmental pulmonary arteries and embolized using microcoils. Second, 2 main feeders of the VM were selected and embolized with N-butyl cyanoacrylate. Thus, marked flow reduction in the VM was achieved, and the patient's symptom improved dramatically. We believe that embolization of both feeders and drainers is an effective technique for treatment of a chest wall systemic artery-to-pulmonary artery VM.

Successful Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation in a Patient with Radiation-induced Aortic Stenosis for Mediastinal Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Aortic stenosis (AS), a late complication of thoracic radiation therapy for chest lesions, is often coincident with porcelain aorta or hostile thorax. We herein report a 59-year-old man with a history of mediastinal Hodgkin lymphoma treated with radiation therapy but later presenting with heart failure caused by severe AS. Severe calcification in the mediastinum and around the ascending aorta made it difficult to perform surgical aortic valve replacement. The patient therefore underwent transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). It is important to recognize radiation-induced AS early, now that TAVI is a well-established treatment required by increasing numbers of successfully treated cancer patients.