Aortic Valve Leaflet Rupture Causing Delayed Left Main Coronary Ostial Obstruction During Valvuloplasty Preceding TAVR.

A 69-year-old man with mediastinal radiation history underwent balloon valvuloplasty before transcatheter aortic valve replacement, which caused aortic leaflet rupture leading to unstable severe aortic regurgitation and subsequent left main ostial obstruction. A balloon-expanding valve was implanted to capture the ruptured leaflet and a left main stent was placed. (Level of Difficulty: Advanced.).

A case report: percutaneous management of high-output heart failure from iatrogenic aortocoronary venous grafting to the coronary sinus.

BACKGROUND: Aortocoronary arteriovenous fistula (ACAVF) due to iatrogenic bypass grafting to a cardiac vein is an exceedingly rare complication resulting from coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery. If not identified in a timely fashion, ACAVF has known significant clinical consequences related to left to right shunting and possible residual myocardial ischemia. CASE PRESENTATION: An 82-year-old male with a history of CABG, presented with dyspnea. Over the span of 2 years following CABG, the patient experienced progressive exertional dyspnea and peripheral edema. The patient was found to have a new cardiomyopathy with a severely reduced ejection fraction at 30-35%. The patient underwent diagnostic left heart catheterization, and an ACAVF was discovered between a saphenous vein graft and the coronary sinus. The patient underwent successful percutaneous coiling of the ACAVF with no residual flow. Follow-up echocardiography at 3 months revealed restoration of left ventricular systolic function to 50% and significant improvement in heart failure symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: ACAVF is an exceedingly rare iatrogenic complication of CABG that may result in residual ischemia from the non-grafted myocardial territory and other sequelae relating to left to right shunting and a high-output state. Management for this pathology includes but is not limited to the use of percutaneous coiling, implantation of covered stents, graft removal and regrafting, and ligation.

An unusual case report of stress-induced cardiomyopathy presenting as ventricular fibrillation cardiopulmonary arrest and third-degree atrioventricular block.

BACKGROUND: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TCM) can clinically present as an acute coronary syndrome; however, the former has regional wall motion abnormalities that extend beyond a single coronary vascular territory without any plaque rupture. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy classically involves apical ballooning of left ventricle (LV). It is uncommon for TCM to present as cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA) along with third-degree atrioventricular (AV) block. CASE SUMMARY: A 63-year-old female, underwent a ventricular fibrillation (VF) CPA. She was defibrillated three times and return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) was achieved after 37 min. Her post-ROSC electrocardiogram showed non-specific ST-segment changes and T-wave inversions and soon progressed to third-degree AV block. Patient had a transvenous pacemaker placed to pace her heart. Echocardiogram showed an LV ejection fraction of 15-20% with akinesis of the apex and anteroseptum. An echocardiogram repeated 4 days after the cardiopulmonary arrests showed an ejection fraction of 60-65% with hypokinesis of mid anterior and antero-apical hypokinesis. However, the patient still continued to require a pacemaker and hence eventually received a dual-chamber pacemaker/implantable cardioverter-defibrillator for her AV block and ventricular arrhythmia. DISCUSSION: Most commonly TCM presents with chest pain and symptoms of acute myocardial infarction. We present a very rare presentation of TCM associated with VF and CPA along with third-degree AV block. There have handful of case reports documenting TCM causing CPA in some patients and other case reports showing TCM causing high degree AV block. In our patient, TCM was associated with both VF and CPA along with third-degree AV block.

Curcumin targets FOLFOX-surviving colon cancer cells via inhibition of EGFRs and IGF-1R.

Curcumin (diferuloylmethane), which has no discernible toxicity, inhibits initiation, promotion and progression of carcinogenesis. 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) or 5-FU plus oxaliplatin (FOLFOX) remains the backbone of colorectal cancer chemotherapeutics, but produces an incomplete response resulting in survival of cells (chemo-surviving cells) that may lead to cancer recurrence. The present investigation was, therefore, undertaken to examine whether addition of curcumin to FOLFOX is a superior therapeutic strategy for chemo-surviving cells. Forty-eight-hour treatment of colon cancer HCT-116 and HT-29 cells with FOLFOX resulted in 60-70% survival, accompanied by a marked activation of insulin like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF-1R) and minor to moderate increase in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), v-erb-b2 erythroblastic leukemia viral oncogene homolog 2 (HER-2) as well as v-akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homolog 1 (AKT), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and cyclin-D1. However, inclusion of curcumin to continued FOLFOX treatment for another 48 h greatly reduced the survival of these cells, accompanied by a concomitant reduction in activation of EGFR, HER-2, IGF-1R and AKT, as well as expression of COX-2 and cyclin-D1. More importantly, EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor gefitinib or attenuation of IGF-1R expression by the corresponding si-RNA caused a 30-60% growth inhibition of chemo-surviving HCT-116 cells. However, curcumin alone was found to be more effective than both gefitinib and IGF-1R si-RNA mediated growth inhibition of chemo-surviving HCT-116 cells and addition of FOLFOX to curcumin did not increase the growth inhibitory effect of curcumin. Our data suggest that inclusion of curcumin in conventional chemotherapeutic regimens could be an effective strategy to prevent the emergence of chemoresistant colon cancer cells.