Superficial temporal artery access for carotid artery stenting: A case report

Percutaneous intervention of patients who suffer from generalized vascular disease is often a great challenge due to the limited accessibility of the access gates. We discuss the case of a 66-year-old man who presented with critical right internal carotid artery (ICA) stenosis after previous hospitalization due to stroke. In addition to arteria lusoria, the patient had known bilateral femoral amputation, occlusion of the left ICA and significant three-vessel coronary artery disease. After unsuccessful common carotid artery (CCA) cannulation from the right distal radial artery access, we successfully performed the diagnostic angiography and the planned right ICA-CCA intervention using superficial temporal artery (STA) puncture. We showed that STA access can be used as an alternative and additional access site for diagnostic carotid artery angiography and intervention when standard access sites alone are insufficient

Corallistin A, a second example of a free porphyrin from a living organism : isolation from the demosponge Corallistes sp. of the coral see and inhibition of abnormal cells

It is shown that the demosponge #Corallistes sp. (#Tetractinomorpha, #Lithistida, #Corallistidae) collected in the Coral Sea, contains corallistin A, the second example, of a free porphyrin from a living organism. The compound proved to be active against the Kb cell line. In contrast with the geoporphyrins which do not bear any O-atom corallistin A carries two carboxylic groups. (Résumé d'auteur

MODELING DRUG ELUTING STENTS FOR CORONARY ARTERY BIFURCATION CONSIDERING NON-NEWTONIAN EFFECTS

ABSTRACT 1 Drug Eluting Stents (DES) are commonly used for the treatment of stenotic arteries. Restenosis can be treated by delivering anti-thrombotic and anti-proliferative drugs to the arterial wall. The main mechanism of the drug eluting stent is to allow diffusion of the drug from the coating on the stent, into the arterial wall over a prolonged period of time. Investigation of blood flow hemodynamics and shear stress are of great importance in understanding the transport of drugs through the circulatory systems and predicting the performance of drug eluting stents. While drug eluting stent effectively reduces restenosis rate, the conventional drug eluting stent should be optimized to be used in the bifurcation stenting. Various flow patterns due to specific designs of drug eluting stent influence drug delivery. Numerical simulation techniques are appropriate approaches to study such phenomena which can be used to optimize the design of drug eluting stents for bifurcations. In this paper, the complexity of drug eluting stent function in the bifurcation is presented by employing computational fluid dynamics analysis for various stent strut designs. Drug transportation through the lumen and determination of local drug concentrations in arterial wall is carried out for both Newtonian and non-Newtonian flow * Corresponding author conditions. It is, to the author"s best knowledge, the first investigation of drug dispersion in arterial bifurcation considering the effects of both the blood rheological properties and stent strut design. NOMENCLATUR

Distal Radial Artery Access for Recanalization of Radial Artery Occlusion and Repeat Intervention: A Single Center Experience

Background: Once occluded, the radial artery becomes unsuitable for repeat interventions and obligates the need for alternative vascular access, such as the femoral approach, which is not encouraged by current guidelines. With the dissemination of distal radial access (DRA), which allows the cannulation of the artery in its distal segment and which remains patent even in the case of radial artery occlusion (RAO), the option to perform angioplasty at this level becomes feasible. Methods: Thirty patients with RAO were enrolled in this pilot study. Recanalization was performed through DRA using hydrophilic guidewires. The feasibility endpoint was procedural success, namely the successful RAO recanalization, the efficacy endpoint was patency of the artery at 30 days, and the safety endpoint was the absence of periprocedural vascular major complications or major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events. Results: The mean age of the patients was 63 ± 11 years, and 15 patients (50%) were men. Most patients had asymptomatic RAO (n = 28, 93.3%), and only two (6.6%) reported numbness in their hands. The most common indication for the procedure was PCI (19, 63.2%). Total procedural time was 41 ± 22 min, while the amount of contrast used was 140 ± 28 mL. Procedural success was 100% (n = 30). Moreover, there were no major vascular complications (0%); only two small hematomas were described (10%) and one had an angiographically visible perforation (3%). One case of periprocedural stroke was reported (3%), with onset immediately after the procedure and recovering 24 h later. Twenty-seven radial arteries (90%) remained patent at the one-month follow-up. Conclusions: RAO recanalization is feasible and safe, and by using dedicated hydrophilic guidewires, the success rate is high without significantly increasing procedural time or the amount of used contrast