Coronary angiography and angioplasty in diabetic patients

Screening, diagnosis and revascularization of coronary artery disease (CAD) in type 2 diabetes mellitus are major challenges for current clinical practice. Diagnostic (angiography) and therapeutic (angioplasty) cardiac catheterization are important resources for the clinical assessment and management of coronary atherosclerosis. Anatomic peculiarities of CAD in diabetics can be well characterized by angiography, associated or not by intravascular ultrasound. The worse outcome following coronary revascularization procedures, either angioplasty or surgery, in diabetic is one of the main fields of clinical research. In spite of controversies, about one quarter of angioplasty and one third of surgical revascularization procedures are performed in diabetics. Two ongoing, large, randomized, multicentric trials are investigating the best management of CAD in diabetics. The BARI 2D trial is randomizing asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients with CAD for either medical therapy or revascularization (angioplasty or surgery, according to the best clinical judgment). The FREEDOM trial is randomizing stable patients with multivessel CAD for either angioplasty with drug eluting stents or surgery, with or without extracorporeal circulation. While the evidences are not available, in order to decide on the best revascularization procedure for individual patients, medical practice has been balanced according to a number of variables. Conditions that favor angioplasty: short lesions, lesions in large vessels, absence of left anterior descending artery disease, previous coronary bypass surgery and high surgical risk due to co-morbidities. Conditions that favor surgery: long lesions, lesions in small vessels, presence of left anterior descending artery disease and need for associated valve surgery.O rastreamento, o diagnóstico e a revascularização da doença arterial coronária (DAC) no diabetes tipo 2 representam enormes desafios para a prática médica. Neste contexto, o cateterismo cardíaco diagnóstico (angiografia) e terapêutico (angioplastia) são recursos fundamentais na avaliação clínica e manejo da aterosclerose coronária. Avaliações das particularidades anatômicas da DAC no diabetes são detalhadamente caracterizadas pela angiografia coronária, associada ou não ao ultra-som intracoronário. Por outro lado, a resposta pior aos procedimentos de revascularização (angioplastia e cirurgia) da DAC nos diabéticos representa umas das áreas de maior investigação clínica contemporânea. A despeito das controvérsias, cerca de um quarto dos pacientes submetidos a angioplastia e um terço dos pacientes submetidos a cirurgia são diabéticos. Dois grandes estudos multicêntricos randomizados, em andamento, investigam o melhor manejo da DAC nos diabéticos. O BARI 2D está randomizando pacientes com DAC assintomáticos ou com sintomas leves para tratamento clínico ou revascularização (angioplastia ou cirurgia, conforme melhor julgamento clínico). O FREEDOM está randomizando pacientes diabéticos estáveis com DAC multiarterial, para angioplastia com stent farmacológico ou cirurgia, com ou sem uso de circulação extra-corpórea. Enquanto as evidências não estão disponíveis, a prática médica atual é balanceada por um conjunto de variáveis na decisão sobre a melhor alternativa de revascularização. Condições que favorecem a angioplastia: estenoses curtas, vasos grandes, ausência de estenose na artéria descendente anterior (ADA), cirurgia de revascularização prévia e risco cirúrgico elevado. Condições que favorecem a indicação de cirurgia: estenoses longas, vasos pequenos, presença de estenose da ADA e cirurgia valvar associada.UNIFESP-EPMSPDM Hospital São Paulo Serviço de Hemodinâmica e Cardiologia IntervencionistaFOR Hospital do Rim e HipertensãoUNIFESP, EPMSPDM Hospital São Paulo Serviço de Hemodinâmica e Cardiologia IntervencionistaSciEL

Left Bundle Branch Block, an Old–New Entity

Left bundle branch block (LBBB) is generally associated with a poorer prognosis in comparison to normal intraventricular conduction, but also in comparison to right bundle branch block which is generally considered to be benign in the absence of an underlying cardiac disorder like congenital heart disease. LBBB may be the first manifestation of a more diffuse myocardial disease. The typical surface ECG feature of LBBB is a prolongation of QRS above 0.11 s in combination with a delay of the intrinsic deflection in leads V5 and V6 of more than 60 ms and no septal q waves in leads I, V5, and V6 due to the abnormal septal activation from right to left. LBBB may induce abnormalities in left ventricular performance due to abnormal asynchronous contraction patterns which can be compensated by biventricular pacing (resynchronization therapy). Asynchronous electrical activation of the ventricles causes regional differences in workload which may lead to asymmetric hypertrophy and left ventricular dilatation, especially due to increased wall mass in late-activated regions, which may aggravate preexisting left ventricular pumping performance or even induce it. Of special interest are patients with LBBB and normal left ventricular dimensions and normal ejection fraction at rest but who may present with an abnormal increase in pulmonary artery pressure during exercise, production of lactate during high-rate pacing, signs of ischemia on myocardial scintigrams (but no coronary artery narrowing), and abnormal ultrastructural findings on myocardial biopsy. For this entity, the term latent cardiomyopathy had been suggested previously

Effect of left ventricular volume on results of coronary artery bypass grafting

After coronary artery bypass grafting, our patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and significant left ventricular (LV) dilation demonstrated an improvement in angina symptoms, acceptable operative and medium-term survival, a trend toward improvement in LV ejection fraction, and a significant reduction in LV chamber size. Our results suggest that patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and LV dilation should not be excluded from surgical revascularization based on ventricular size alone