Cardiac arrest in myocardial infarction with non-obstructive coronary artery (MINOCA) secondary to thyroid dysfunction.

A man in his 40s who was previously well had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Postresuscitation ECG showed ST-elevation myocardial infarction (MI). Emergency coronary angiogram revealed MI with non-obstructive coronary arteries (MINOCA) with evidence of spasm in the right coronary artery. Both his echocardiogram and cardiac MRI revealed a normal heart. Further workup showed markedly elevated free T4 (99.5 pmol/L) and free T3 (26.7 pmol/L) with low thyroid stimulating hormone (<0.02 pmol/L) in keeping with thyroid storm. He also had an elevated adjusted calcium level (2.84 mmol/L), which could have contributed to his coronary artery spasm. His peak troponin T was elevated at 798 ng/L (<14) suggesting myocardial damage. He was treated with propylthiouracil, steroids, beta-blocker, calcium channel blocker and intravenous fluids. The patient achieved a full recovery and was discharged home. This is an unusual case of thyroid dysfunction resulting in coronary artery spasm, cardiac arrest and MINOCA.

Stent, balloon and hybrid in de novo PCI: could the whole be greater than the sum of its parts?

Andreas Grüntzig, an ardent angiologist crafted an indeflatable sausage-shaped dual-lumen balloon- catheter, designed its delivery to the heart, launched minimally invasive coronary intervention and taught by beaming live demonstration. Subsequent advances are just incremental tweaks and tinkers around this fully formed framework from 1978. The near-immediate or instant feedback learning process by which the heart responds to any new invasive procedural variation facilitates each new change; be it drug- eluting stent, drug-coated balloon, or both in different combinations and permutations. Now with Grüntzig's balloon armed with an antiproliferative drug, it could dominate the field once more, as he originally envisaged.