No-reflow is the situation in which the epicardial vessel has been opened and the myocardium is still not perfused. It occurs in something between five and twenty per cent of primary angioplasty cases, it is an independent predictor of infarct size, heart failure and mortality, and the window in which it can be influenced is (more…)
Stent thrombosis is uncommon and catastrophic. It presents as ST elevation infarction in a patient who has recently had a stent, mortality is in the region of one in five, and the cause is almost always identifiable in retrospect. Knowing the categories is what makes it identifiable in advance. On this page Classification by timing (more…)
Dual antiplatelet therapy after percutaneous coronary intervention is no longer a fixed prescription. Duration is a judgement about which of two risks is greater in the patient in front of you, and the evidence has moved decisively towards shorter courses in patients whose bleeding risk is high. On this page The default durations The trials (more…)