Trends in primary percutaneous coronary intervention for the treatment of acute coronary ST-elevation myocardial infarction in Latin American countries: insights from the CECI consortium.

Background: ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) requires revascularization treatment, preferably via primary percutaneous coronary interventions (pPCI). There is a lack of data about contemporary management of STEMI in Latin America. Methods: This was a multicenter, multinational, prospective, and dynamic registry of patients undergoing pPCI in Latin America for STEMI (STEMI/LATAMI Registry) that was carried out in nine centers from five countries (Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, and the Dominican Republic) between June 2021 and June 2023. All interventionalists involved in the study were originally trained at the same institution (Centro de Estudios en Cardiología Intervencionista, Buenos Aires, Argentina). The primary objective was to evaluate procedural and in-hospital outcomes of pPCI in STEMI and in-hospital outcome in the Latin America (LATAM) region; as secondary endpoints, we analyzed the following subgroups: differences between pPCI vs. pharmaco-invasive or late presenters, gender, elderly and very elderly patients, cardiogenic shock outcomes, and causes of STEMI. Results: In total, 744 STEMI patients who underwent PCI between June 2021 and June 2023 in five countries (nine centers) in our continent were included; 76.3% had a pPCI, 8.1% pharmaco-invasive PCI, and 15.6% had late STEMI PCI. There were no differences in region or center when we evaluated in-hospital and 30 days of death. The rate of procedural success was 96.2%, and the overall in-hospital mortality rate was 2.2%. In the subgroup of pPCI, mean symptom onset-to-balloon time was 295.3 ± 246 min, and mean door-to-balloon time was 55.8 ± 49.9 min. The femoral approach was chosen in 60.5%. In 3.0% of patients, the left main disease was the culprit artery, with 1.63 ± 1.00 stents per patient (564 drug-eluting stents and 652 bare metal stents), with 34 patients receiving only plain optimal balloon angioplasty. Definitive stent thrombosis was related to the infarct artery as the primary cause of STEMI in 7.5% of patients. The use of assistant mechanical devices was low, at 2.1% in the pPCI group. Women were older, with large numbers in very elderly age (≥90 years), greater mortality, and incidence of spontaneous coronary dissection as a cause of STEMI (p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p < 0.001, and p < 0.003, respectively). Conclusion: In suitable LATAM Centers from low/medium-income countries, this prospective registry in patients with STEMI, PCI performed by well-trained operators has comparable results to those reported in well-developed countries.

Estado inflamatorio en el infarto agudo de miocardio, su impacto en el remodelado ventricular y nuevas dianas terapéuticas / Inflammation in acute myocardial infarction, impact on ventricular remodeling, and new therapeutic targets

RESUMEN La cardiopatía isquémica es la causa más frecuente de insuficiencia cardíaca, con una alta incidencia de esta a pesar de la revascularización precoz y la modulación neurohormonal. En el contexto del infarto agudo de miocardio los cardiomiocitos necrosados inducen la activación del sistema inmune innato, con aumento de la concentración de células inflamatorias que ayudan a eliminar las células muertas, e iniciar una respuesta correctiva que permite la formación adecuada de tejido cicatrizal.La prolongación o expansión de la respuesta inflamatoria posterior al infarto contribuye al remodelado adverso ventricular y al desarrollo de insuficiencia cardíaca.Entender los mecanismos inflamatorios que se desarrollan producto del infarto, y su impacto en el remodelado adverso que aumenta el número de eventos cardiovasculares mayores, permite comprender a la inflamación como un objetivo terapéutico.

ABSTRACT Ischemic heart disease is the most common cause of heart failure, with a high incidence of heart failure despite early revascularization and neurohormonal modulation.In the acute myocardial infarction setting, necrotized cardiomyocytes induce activation of the innate immune system, increasing the levels of inflammatory cells to help remove dead cells and initiate a corrective response, which allows for proper scar tissue formation.A prolonged or expanded inflammatory response after infarction contributes to adverse ventricular remodeling and development of heart failure.Understanding the inflammatory mechanisms that emerge as a result of myocardial infarction and their impact on adverse remodeling that leads to an increased.

High Non-Cardiac Death Incidence Should Be a Limitation of Drug-Eluting Stents Implantation? Insights from Recent Randomized Data.

Despite the introduction of drug-eluting stents (DES) significantly improved the efficacy and safety of percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), particularly in a high-risk group of patients, the gap between PCI with his competitor's coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) and/or optimal medical treatment alone was not reduced. In this revision, we highlighted the fact that in recent years landmark randomized studies reported at mid and long-term follow-ups a high incidence of non-cardiac death, cancer incidence, or both in the DES group of patients. The overall incidence of non-cardiac death was significantly higher in the DES vs. the comparator arm: 5.5% and 3.8%, respectively, p = 0.000018, and non-cardiac death appears to be more divergent between DES vs. the comparator at the extended follow-up to expenses of the last one. One of these trials reported five times greater cancer incidence in the DES arm at late follow-up, 5% vs. 0.7% p < 0.0018. We review the potential reason for these unexpected findings, although we can discard that DES biology could be involved in it. Until all these issues are resolved, we propose that DES implantation should be tailored accorded patient age, life expectancy, and lesion complexity.

Ventricular Septal Perforation after Biventricular Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy Successfully Repaired with an Amplatzer Device: First Report in the Literature.

A 79-year-old female was admitted with sudden onset dyspnea, mild oppressive chest pain, and severe anxiety disorder. Patient had history of hypertension, dyslipidemia, smoking, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. On admission blood pressure was 160/90 and heart rate was 130 bpm. Transthoracic echocardiography (TE) and contrast tomography showed a thin septum with an abnormal left and right ventricular contraction with an "apical ballooning" pattern and mild increase of cardiac enzymes. At the 4th day of admission, the patient presented symptoms and signs of congestive heart failure and developed cardiogenic shock. EKG showed an inversion of T waves in all precordial leads. In a new TE, a ventricular septal perforation (VSP) in the apical portion of the septum was seen. Coronary angiogram showed angiographically "normal" coronary arteries. With a diagnosis of VSP in takotsubo cardiomyopathy, a percutaneous procedure to repair the VSP was performed 11 days after admission. The VSP was closed with an Amplatzer device. TE performed 24 hours after showed significant improvement of ventricular function and good apposition of the Amplatzer device. Three days later she was discharged from the hospital. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of a VSP in a TCM repaired percutaneously with an occluder device.

One-year outcome of patients with diabetes mellitus after percutaneous coronary intervention with three different revascularization strategies: results from the Diabetic Argentina Registry (DEAR).

AIMS: Percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) are associated with a high incidence of coronary restenosis, myocardial infarction (MI) and death. This study was to assess the potential role of a paclitaxel-eluting balloon (PEB) treatment in patients with DM with coronary lesions compared to those treated either with bare-metal stents (BMS) or drug-eluting stents (DES). METHODS AND RESULTS: The Diabetic Argentina Registry (DEAR) was an observational, prospective, non-randomised, open-label study that enrolled 92 patients with diabetes mellitus in three centers from Buenos Aires, Argentina, between April 2009 and March 2011, to be treated with PEB. Results were compared with previous outcome data in all patients with DM treated with DES (n=129 pts) or BMS (n=96 pts) in clinical studies conducted at our institutions. At one-year follow-up, patients with DM who received PEB followed by BMS implantation (96%) had a significantly lower incidence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) compared to the BMS group (BMS 32.3%, PEB 13.2%; P=.003). The incidence of target-vessel failure (TVF) was 30.2% (BMS) and 11% (PEB) (P=.003), that of target-vessel revascularization (TVR) was 22.9% (BMS) and 8.3% (PEB) (P=.005) and the composite of death/MI occurred in 13.5% (BMS) and in 2.2% for PEB (P=.05). These positive results are persistent even after subgroups analysis. When comparing with previous DES patients, TVF was 18.6% in DES vs. 11.0% in PEB (P=.13), MACE was 18.6% in DES vs. 13.2% in PEB (P=.29), TVR rate was 14.0% in DES vs. 8.3% in PEB (P=.14) and the composite death/MI was 9.3% in DES vs. 4.4% in PEB (0.18) CONCLUSIONS: Diabetic patients treated with PEB followed by BMS resulted in a significantly better outcome than BMS alone and appeared to be comparable to DES treatment.