Stent Fracture after Everolimus-Eluting Stent Implantation

Compared with bare-metal stents, drug-eluting stents (DES) have greatly reduced the risk of in-stent restenosis (ISR) by inhibiting neointimal growth. Nevertheless, DES are still prone to device failure, which may lead to cardiac events. Recently, stent fracture (SF) has emerged as a potential mechanism of DES failure that is associated with ISR. Stent fracture is strongly related to stent type, and prior reports suggest that deployment of sirolimus eluting stents (SES) may be associated with a higher risk of SF compared to other DES. Everolimus eluting stents (EESs) represent a new generation of DES with promising results. The occurrence of SF with EES has not been well established. The present paper describes two cases of EES fracture associated with ISR

Left circumflex artery injury postmitral valve surgery, single center experience

The left circumflex (LCX) artery is located close to the mitral valve (MV), making it susceptible to injury during MV surgery. We are reporting our experience in the diagnosis and management of this complication. We retrospectively reviewed our surgical and coronary angiography databases for patients with documented LCX artery injury during MV surgery between January 2000 and December 2016. The complication was associated with MV replacement (9/1313, 0.7%) but not MV repair (0/393, 0.0%). Eight patients (88.9%) were female and the mean age was 40.4 ± 14.2 years. There was roughly similar distribution of left and right dominant coronary circulations (5 and 4 patients, respectively). Eight patients (88.9%) had ischemic changes on electrocardiogram and ventricular arrhythmias were documented on six patients (66.7%). Three patients (33.3%) were treated with percutaneous coronary intervention while six patients (66.7%) required redo surgery to graft the LCX artery. The 30-day mortality was high (33.3%). A high index of suspicion is required to diagnose this injury. At the moment, no consensus is available on the optimal treatment strategy. We propose percutaneous approach as the first option to spare the patients from undergoing open-heart surgery for the second time. Keywords: valvular surgery, percutaneous coronary intervention, coronary artery disease, coronary bypass grafts, mitral valve diseas