Editor`s Message

The goal of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology is to provide state-of-the-art information that is relevant to the effective diagnosis and treatment of patients with cardiovascular disease. This issue coincides with the 2010 Annual Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association held in Chicago, Illinois, and contains many selections that clinicians will find useful in their practice.

Dr. Payam Dehghani and associates from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, describe their analysis of the efficacy and long-term safety of the StarClose device for hemostasis of arterial puncture sites distal to the common femoral artery bifurcation following PCI. In the next research selection, Dr. Bina Ahmed and colleagues from the Division of Cardiology at the University of Vermont in Burlington, report on their analysis of angiographic predictors of vascular complications among women undergoing cardiac catheterization and intervention. Drs. Saba Khan and Lloyd Klein from the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois, have provided a commentary to accompany the Ahmed et al article. Dr. George Adams and collaborators from the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina, the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and the University of Washington, NorthEast Medical Center, describe their multicenter study implementing pre-hospital ECG transmission for STEMI patients. Drs. Jason Ko and David Lee of Stanford University have provided a commentary to accompany this article. Dr. Dina Halwani and colleagues from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Cyprus University of Technology in Nicosia, report on their study in which they discovered in-vivo corrosion and local release of metallic ions from vascular stents into adjacent tissue. Dr. Toshiharu Fujii and associates from the Division of Cardiology, Tokai University School of Medicine in Isehara, Japan, report on their study assessing the importance of angiographic evaluation of right upper-limb arterial anomalies when performing transradial coronary intervention. The final original research selection comes from Dr. Hiroyuki Kawamori and colleagues from Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine in Hyogo, Japan, and describes their study comparing OCT and IVUS to monitor PCI. Dr. Subhash Banerjee and colleagues from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, have provided a commentary to accompany the Kawamori et al article.

This issue also contains a clinical images selection, a rapid communication, an article describing a new technique and a review article. Dr. Hiroki Ikenaga and colleagues from Hiroshima City Hospital, Hiroshima, Japan, have submitted interesting clinical images showing very late stent thrombosis after sirolimus-eluting stent placement using OCT and coronary angioscopy. Drs. Rami Khouzam, David Choi and Srihari Naidu from the Division of Cardiology at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, New York, have provided a rapid communication article describing their use of a PressureWire for comprehensive hemodynamic assessment in a patient with mechanical aortic and mitral valves. Drs. Chris Lim, Adrian Banning and Keith Channon from John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, United Kingdom, present their novel approach using OCT in the diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery dissection. Drs. Adlam, Cuculi, Lim and Banning, from the same institution, have provided a review article focusing on the management of spontaneous coronary artery dissection in the primary PCI era.

Articles published in our Online Exclusive section this month include an unusual case of right ventricular MI; a case of left main systolic compression caused by a dilated pulmonary artery in a patient with congenital pulmonic stenosis; a description of the diagnosis of an unusual anomalous origin of the LAD and circumflex arteries from two separate ostia in the right sinus of Valsalva with a dominant RCA; a case demonstrating coronary steal resulting from LIMA-to-SVG-to-LAD-to-ventricular fistula physiology associated with a malpositioned prosthetic aortic valve; an interesting case series showing the association of an atretic LIMA graft with an internal mammary-to-pulmonary vasculature fistula; a complex case of STEMI caused by coronary artery compression due to a localized pericardial hematoma resulting from coronary perforation; and a complex case where the hydrophilic coating of a jailed guidewire was peeled off but successfully retrieved percutaneously. These selections can be found on our website, and I encourage you to visit www.invasivecardiology.com to read these interesting and informative articles, as well as any past issues of the journal that you may have missed. Also, take advantage of our new technologies with links to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from our home page for interesting discussions on important topics. If you are in Chicago, please enjoy the AHA Annual Scientific Sessions.