Editor`s Message

Dear Readers, The goal of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology is to provide state-of-the-art information that will support clinicians in the effective diagnosis and treatment of patients with cardiovascular disease. There are many selections in this issue that I hope readers will find useful in their clinical practice. In the first original research selection, Dr. Bjoern Lengenfelder and associates from University Hospital Würzburg in Würzburg, Germany, and the Center for Cardiology in Lüneburg, Germany, present their study of long-term mortality outcome of tirofiban therapy in elective percutaneous coronary intervention (TOPSTAR trial). Dr. Bryan Schwartz and associates from the Heart Institute and Department of Cardiology, Good Samaritan Hospital, Los Angeles, and the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, report on their study to evaluate rotational atherectomy in the drug-eluting stent era. Dr. Mladen Vidovich from the University of Illinois in Chicago has provided the editorial commentary on Schwartz et al. Dr. Jayant Bagai and collaborators from the Cardiovascular Center at Vanderbilt University, the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute in Nashville, Tennessee, and St. Joseph’s Translational Institute and Northside Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, have provided an assessment of the efficacy and safety of percutaneous life support during high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention, refractory cardiogenic shock and in-laboratory cardiopulmonary arrest. Dr. Lisa Nee and colleagues have provided a commentary to accompany this topic. The final original research selection comes from Dr. Alessandro Lupi and collaborators from the Department of Cardiology, Maggiore della Carita in Novara, Italy, who report on their study of the safety and efficacy of the Angio-Seal Evolution closure device. Dr. Adhir Shroff from the University of Illinois-Chicago has provided a commentary on this topic. This issue also contains a review article from Dr. Mehmet Cilingiroglu and associates from NorthShore University Health System in Evanston, Illinois, and Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersey, which concentrates on fluoroscopically-guided micropuncture femoral artery access for larger-caliber sheath insertion. For the Clinical Images selection this month, Drs. David Adlam, David Huchings and Keith Channon from the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, United Kingdom, describe their use of Fourier domain optical coherence tomography to guide stenting of a large coronary aneurysm. In the Rapid Communications selection, Dr. Pradeep Nair and colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center present a case example as a first step in the evaluation of the use of prophylactic IABP in high-risk PCI. Articles published in our Online Exclusive section this month include a case of extended late-phase in-stent restenosis after implantation of a bare-metal stent; a presentation of acute urinary retention following percutaneous intervention in the setting of congenital heart disease; the combination of stent-graft and in-stent drug-eluting stent in the treatment of coronary atherosclerosis aneurysm; the use of a retrograde approach with a single guiding catheter for chronic total occlusion of the right coronary artery via an anomalous left circumflex artery; a case demonstrating the successful retrieval of a frayed coronary stent using the peripheral cross-over technique; the use of subclavian balloon valvuloplasty to facilitate lead implant in a patient with subclavian venous obstruction; a complication of the aortic root after implantation of a left ventricular assist device; the use of concurrent transcatheter therapy of valvular aortic stenosis and patent ductus arteriosis; and description of an unusual case of inverted Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. These selections can be found on our Web site 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 follow our links to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from our home page to initiate and participate in further discussions of the articles that appear in the April issue, as well as related topics of interest to those who treat patients with cardiovascular disease.

Sincerely,

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