Transcatheter closure of paravalvular leaks: state of the art.

Paravalvular leak (PVL) is a serious complication after surgical valve replacement or after transcatheter aortic valve replacement. Approximately 1-5% of PVLs can lead to serious clinical consequences, including congestive heart failure and/or haemolytic anaemia. For years, surgical re-intervention has been considered the treatment of choice for symptomatic patients with PVLs. However, surgical re-intervention is associated with a high risk of morbidity and mortality. Transcatheter PVL (TPVL) closure is a less invasive alternative to surgical re-intervention. The safety and feasibility of TPVL closure has been confirmed in several registries and a meta-analysis.In this review, we discuss the clinical implications and diagnosis of PVLs, technical considerations for TPVL, execution of the procedure and assessment of the results.

Time course of reendothelialization of stents in a normal coronary swine model: characterization and quantification.

Late thrombosis of coronary drug-eluting stents is an infrequent but serious complication of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. The best predictor of this event is the lack of endothelialization of stent struts. The objective of this study is to characterize and quantify the time course of endothelialization of different stents implanted in nonatherosclerotic swine coronary arteries. Thirty-three Carbofilm-coated stents were implanted percutaneously in 11 anesthetized domestic, crossbred pigs (weight 25 ± 3 kg, 2 months old). Each animal received 1 stainless steel stent (SS), 1 cobalt-chromium stent (CCS), and 1 tacrolimus-eluting stent (TES) in each coronary artery. Follow-up periods were 1 day (n = 9 stents), 3 days (n = 9 stents), and 7 days (n = 15 stents). Longitudinal sections of the stented vessels were examined using scanning electron microscopy. At 1 day, there was scarce, patchy endothelialization with areas of fibrin; the endothelialization rate was similar for all the stents (SS, 29% ± 23%; CCS, 29% ± 24%; TES, 31% ± 25%; P = .9). At 3 days, there were more endothelial cells but with immature features and giant cells over fibrin; the endothelialization was greater in SS and CCS than in TES (SS, 79% ± 14%; CCS, 81% ± 17%; TES, 46% ± 9%; P = .007). At 7 days, arteries showed better endothelialization with few giant cells; the endothelialization was greater in SS and CCS than in TES (SS, 95% ± 4%; CCS, 98% ± 4%; TES, 79% ± 9%; P = .01). In conclusion, the described model is useful for the analysis of endothelialization of coronary stents and facilitates measurement of its rate of formation and characterization of the involved cell types.