Child ego state is associated with high prevalence of repeated hospitalizations in patients with heart failure.

AIMS: Inadequate self-care management is a leading cause of re-hospitalization in patients with heart failure (HF). Psychological factors such as some ego functions interfere with self-care behaviour modification, leading to poor outcomes in patients with several chronic diseases. However, characteristics of ego states in patients with repeated hospitalization for HF remain undefined. METHODS AND RESULTS: The present study enrolled 40 HF outpatients with previous history of HF hospitalization and receiving self-care management. Patients' psychological characteristics were assessed by Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) for screening depressive symptoms, and the Tokyo University Egogram (TEG) New Version II for analysing human behaviour based on five functional ego states; critical parent, nurturing parent, adult, free child, and adapted child (AC). Twelve patients (30.0%) had previous history of repeated (two or more) HF hospitalization. Most of them (75%) had a history of at least one or more re-hospitalizations related to inadequate self-care. Patients with repeated HF hospitalization had significantly lower AC score, which represents uncooperative and uncompromising behaviours, compared with those without repeated HF hospitalization (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in other parameters, including PHQ-9, between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Low AC ego state was associated with high prevalence of repeated hospitalization in patients with HF. Assessing ego functions may be helpful to tailor educational approaches in these patients.

Pinhole balloon rupture and stuck stent: case report of a new and simple bailout technique for incomplete stent dilatation caused by rupture from a highly calcified lesion.

We report a case of highly calcified 75% stenotic lesion in the proximal left anterior descending coronary artery. During stenting, the balloon incurred a pinhole rupture at the moment of dilatation and the stent expanded only at both ends. This caused the balloon and stent to become lodged in the coronary artery. An attempt to dilate the balloon using rapid inflation alone was not successful, but we succeeded in dilating the stent with rapid balloon inflation by increasing the concentration of the contrast medium. We confirmed the occurrence of this phenomenon in vitro.

Moderate stenosis in left main trunk side branches treated with single sirolimus-eluting stents should be observed without additional stenting.

The sirolimus-eluting stent (SES) has dramatically reduced restenosis in patients with most types of coronary lesions, but bifurcation lesions remain a predictor of poor prognosis even in SES implantation. We aimed to determine the clinical outcomes of the left main trunk (LMT) side branches (SB) treated with a single SES strategy. SES implantation was successfully performed on 70 patients with LMT stenosis from August 2005 to August 2008. Of the 70 patients, 55 patients (59 SB) were treated with a single SES and a jailed SB. The 56 SB were divided into two groups according to percent diameter stenosis immediately following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) (Group 1: >50%; Group 2: <50%). Quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) data was evaluated. One year angiographic follow-up was performed on 23 patients (82.1%) in Group 1, and 21 patients (78.6%) in Group 2. Group 1 MLD was significantly larger at follow up than that post-PCI (0.9 ± 0.4 vs. 1.2 mm ± 0.6 mm, p < 0.01). In Group 2, MLD and percent diameter stenosis did not change significantly. SB revascularization was not performed on either group at follow-up. Clinical outcomes of moderate stenosis in LMT SB treated with a single SES were acceptable, and stenosis progression within 1 year was minimal. We concluded that patients who present moderate residual stenosis in LMT SB with no presentation of ischemic symptoms should be observed rather than re-stented.

Late progression after sirolimus-eluting stent implantation for de novo lesions--comparison with bare metal stent implantation.

BACKGROUND: In previous studies, the minimal luminal diameter (MLD) of lesions treated with a bare metal stent (BMS) was shown to improve from 6 months to 3 years. However, the long-term response to a sirolimus-eluting stent (SES) implantation remains unclear. METHODS AND RESULTS: To evaluate 6-month, 12-month and 3-year outcomes, clinical and angiographic follow-up data were analyzed for 367 consecutive patients (506 de novo lesions) who underwent successful SES implantation compared to follow-up data for 617 consecutive patients (802 de novo lesions) who underwent BMS implantation. Clinical follow-up information was obtained for 363 SES-treated patients (98.9%) and 581 BMS-treated patients (94.2%) at 1 year, and 334 SES-treated patients (91.0%) and 566 BMS-treated patients (91.7%) at 3 years. At 3 years, there were no significant differences in the cumulative cardiac death and myocardial infarction. Target lesion revascularization (TLR) rates were significantly higher in BMS-treated patients than in SES-treated patients. In BMS-treated patients, most TLR was performed within 450 days, however, after 450 days, the TLR rate was significantly lower than that for the SES-treated patients. In quantitative coronary angiographic data, among lesions that required no revascularization at the initial 12-month follow up, MLD increased significantly from the 12-month to the 3-year follow-up angiography in BMS-treated lesions. However, MLD decreased significantly in SES-treated lesions. CONCLUSIONS: From a 12-month follow-up to a 3-year follow-up, stenosis in BMS-treated lesions regressed, but stenosis in SES-treated lesions progressed. And late TLR was more frequently required in the SES-treated patients.