Jan-08

This issue of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology includes original research articles, a Rapid Communication, selections from the journal’s special section Clinical Images and online case reports which can be found in archive section on our website, as well as in the new Digital JIC at: www.invasivecardiology.com. I encourage you to visit the website to read these interesting and informative case reports. I would also like to thank all of the members of the editorial board and invited reviewers whose tireless efforts have resulted in the high-quality publications that have appeared in the journal throughout 2007.
In the first research article, Dr. Harvey Hecht and associates from the Department of Interventional Cardiology, Lennox Hill Heart and Vascular Institute in New York, describe their evaluation of indications for multi-detector computed tomographic coronary angiography after catheterbased coronary angiography. They identified seven situations where computed tomographic coronary angiography provided essential information for definitive evaluation of the patient. Dr. Matthew Budoff from Harbor-UCLA in Los Angeles, California, has provided a commentary to accompany the article by Hecht and colleagues relating this to recently published appropriateness criteria.
In the next original research article, Dr. Cem Ozbek presents data from a single-center, prospective registry looking at the clinical and angiographic results after implantation of a passive-coated coronary sent in patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction. The study showed that the polymer-coated stent produced acceptable results in this high-risk patient group.
Next, Drs. Akins, Kerber and Pakbaz from the University of San Diego Medical Center in San Diego, California, describe their treatment of patients presenting with Vertebral artery origin atherosclerosis using bare-metal and drugeluting stents. They found that procedural complication rates were low, and that patients treated with drug-eluting stents had lower rates of recurrent stenoses.
In the next original research article, Dr. Alberto Fonseca and colleagues from Instituto Dante Pazzanese de Cardiologia in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Helios Heart Center in Siegburg, Germany, describe their study using intravascular ultrasound assessment of the AngioSculpt^® Scoring balloon catheter for the treatment of complex coronary lesions. Their study showed that this device was safe and may be useful in treating in-stent restenosis. Drs. Yen-Dong Ho and David Lee of Stanford University, in Stanford, California, have written a commentary to accompany the Fonseca et al article.
In the last original research article, Dr. George Adams and associates from Duke University Medical Center, Departments of Cardiology, Surgery, Biomedical Engineering, Pathology and the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina, present their study of the effectiveness of glycerol mono-oleate (GMO) as a biosealant for use in femoral artery puncture closure. In their animal experiment, the researchers found a significant hemostatic effect at multiple time point assessments, as well as inhibition of bacterial growth.
This issue of the journal contains two articles from the special section, Clinical Images, edited by Dr. David Rizik from the Scottsdale Heart Group at Scottsdale Healthcare Hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona. In the first, Drs. Joumaa, Graham and Rosman from St. John Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, present diagnostic images showing a very late diagnosis of coarctation of the aorta in a 52-year old female. In the next Clinical Images selection, Drs. Rahman, Chaudhury and Aga from the National Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in Dhaka, Bangladesh, present an unusual case of a very young child with documented atherosclerotic coronary artery disease who was treated with PCI and followed for over 2 years.
Drs. Paul Ho and Marie Nguyen from the Division of Cardiology, Hawaii Region Kaiser Permanente in Honolulu, have provide a Rapid Communication on long-term outcomes in patients with multivessel coronary drug-eluting stent treatment who presented with significant ischemic mitral regurgitation.
This issue of the journal also includes case reports that are published directly online. The first online case report with brief review, from Drs. Peiman Jamshidi, Therese Resink and Paul Erne of the Kantonsspital in Lucerne, Switzerland and University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland, features a patient who was managed nonsurgically for a long saphenous vein graft aneurysm using PTFE-covered stents with intravascular ultrasound guidance.
In the next case report, Drs. Kernis, Kovar and Brogno from the Good Samaritan Hospital in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, report their approach to coronary revascularization using a retrograde epicardial collateral technique to treat an occluded ostial circumflex artery arising from the right coronary cusp. Next, Dr. Hicham Khallafi provides a description of apatient who presented with “broken-heart syndrome” and speculates about the mechanisms that may explain this syndrome.
In the next case report, Drs. Nipun Arora and Kul Aggarwal from the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia, Missouri, describe an unusual presentation of a patient with simultaneous late stent thrombosis of drugeluting stents causing acute anterior and inferior myocardial infarction. Next, Drs. Bhindi, Wilson and Ormerod from John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, United Kingdom, present an unusual case of a patient presenting with a patent foramen ovale that was closed using a superior approach. Following this, Drs. Cawley, Gill and Goldberg from the University of Washington in Seattle, present their approach using a patent foramen ovale occluder device to successfully accomplish percutaneous closure of an aortic graft pseudoaneurysm. In the next case report, Drs. Kuehl and Varma from City Hospital Birmingham, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, describe their approach to treating a patient who presented with acute coronary thrombosis in a diffuse coronary artery ectasia. In the next case report, Drs. Wykrzykowska, Williams and Laham from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, report on their successful treatment of a totally occluded renal artery that resulted in the stabilization of renal function, improvement in blood pressure control and pulmonary edema symptoms. In the following case report, Drs. Lee, ChongSeow and Lim from the National University of Singapore, present a case in which a patient had a coronary artery spasm after a period of 6 years following the initial diagnosis. And finally, Drs. Namboodiri, Harikrishnan and Ajitkumar from the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Trivandrum, Kerala, India, report on a case of mirror-image dextrocardia and rheumatic mitral stenosis successfully treated with percutaneous mitral commissurotomy.
It is my hope that the articles in this first issue of 2008 will provide important and timely information that will improve the care and treatment of cardiac patients.

Sincerely,

Richard E. Shaw, PhD, FACC, FACA
Editor-in-Chief