Distal Radial Artery Access for Recanalization of Radial Artery Occlusion and Repeat Intervention: A Single Center Experience.

Background: Once occluded, the radial artery becomes unsuitable for repeat interventions and obligates the need for alternative vascular access, such as the femoral approach, which is not encouraged by current guidelines. With the dissemination of distal radial access (DRA), which allows the cannulation of the artery in its distal segment and which remains patent even in the case of radial artery occlusion (RAO), the option to perform angioplasty at this level becomes feasible. Methods: Thirty patients with RAO were enrolled in this pilot study. Recanalization was performed through DRA using hydrophilic guidewires. The feasibility endpoint was procedural success, namely the successful RAO recanalization, the efficacy endpoint was patency of the artery at 30 days, and the safety endpoint was the absence of periprocedural vascular major complications or major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events. Results: The mean age of the patients was 63 ± 11 years, and 15 patients (50%) were men. Most patients had asymptomatic RAO (n = 28, 93.3%), and only two (6.6%) reported numbness in their hands. The most common indication for the procedure was PCI (19, 63.2%). Total procedural time was 41 ± 22 min, while the amount of contrast used was 140 ± 28 mL. Procedural success was 100% (n = 30). Moreover, there were no major vascular complications (0%); only two small hematomas were described (10%) and one had an angiographically visible perforation (3%). One case of periprocedural stroke was reported (3%), with onset immediately after the procedure and recovering 24 h later. Twenty-seven radial arteries (90%) remained patent at the one-month follow-up. Conclusions: RAO recanalization is feasible and safe, and by using dedicated hydrophilic guidewires, the success rate is high without significantly increasing procedural time or the amount of used contrast.

Radial Artery Calcification in Predicting Coronary Calcification and Atherosclerosis Burden.

Background: Atherosclerosis is a systemic arterial disease with heterogeneous involvement in all vascular beds; however, studies examining the relationship between coronary and radial artery calcification are lacking. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between the two sites and the prognostic value of radial artery calcification (RC) for coronary artery disease. Methods: This is a single-center, retrospective cross-sectional study based on Doppler ultrasound of radial artery (RUS) and coronary artery angiography (CAG). We included a total of 202 patients undergoing RUS during distal radial access and CAG at the same procedure, between December 2020 and May 2021, from which 103 were found having RC during RUS (RC group) and 99 without (NRC group). Coronary calcifications were evaluated either by angiography examination (moderate and severe), positive CT (>100 Agatson units), or intracoronary imaging (IVUS, OCT). Results: A significant correlation was observed between radial calcification and coronary calcification variables (67.3% vs. 32.7%, p=0.001). The correlation between risk factors such as age, smoking, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes mellitus was higher while sex did not play a role. The need of PCI and/or CABG was higher in the RC group (60% vs. 44%, p=0.02). RC, therefore, predicts the extent and severity of coronary artery disease. Conclusion: RC may be frequently associated with calcific coronary plaques. These findings highlight the potential beneficial examination of radial arteries whenever CAD is suspected.

A case report of COVID-19-associated acute hand ischaemia in a young professional volleyball player.

Background: Several coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19)-associated complications are being increasingly reported, including arterial and venous thrombo-embolic events that may lead to amputation of the affected limbs. So far, acute upper limb ischaemia (ULI) has been reported only in critically ill patients. Case summary: Herein, we aimed to present a case of a 29-year-old, otherwise healthy male volleyball player, with acute ischaemic signs in the upper extremity who was diagnosed with COVID-19 1 month before the ischaemic event. It has been shown that volleyball players experience repetitive stress that involves their hands and, in particular, their fingers. Repetitive trauma can lead to local vascular abnormalities, such as reduced capillarization and lower resting blood flow that can lead to pain and cold digits, but never acute ULI. Discussion: To our knowledge, this is the first case of such a hypercoagulable synergistic mechanism that leads to a high thrombus burden. Intra-arterial local thrombolysis and percutaneous transluminal angioplasty failed to succeed, and percutaneous large-bore embolectomy with the Indigo Aspiration System (Penumbra Inc., CA, USA) was deemed necessary.

Distal Radial Secondary Access for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation: The Minimalistic Approach.

BACKGROUND: Although not yet recommended by the guidelines, distal radial access, a new site for cardiovascular interventions, has been rapidly acknowledged and adopted by many centers due to its high rate of success, safety and fewer complications. We present our experience using secondary distal radial access during transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), proposing a new, even more minimal approach. METHODS: As of November 2020, a systematic distal radial approach as secondary access site for TAVI was adopted in our center. Primary endpoints were technical success and major adverse events (MAEs). Secondary endpoints: the access site complication rate, hemodynamic and clinical results of the intervention, procedural related factors, crossover rate to the femoral access site, and hospitalization duration (in days). RESULTS: From November 2020, 41 patients underwent TAVI using this strategy. Patients had a mean age of 76 ± 11.2 years, 41% were male. Six (14.63%) patients received a balloon-expandable valve and 35 (85.37%) received a self-expandable valve. TAVI was successful in all cases. No complications occurred due to transradial access. Puncture success, defined as completed sheath placement was maximum (N = 41/41,100%) and emergent transfemoral secondary access was not required in any case. Primary transfemoral vascular access site complications occurred in 7 cases (17%) of which 4 (13.63%) were resolved through distal radial access: one occlusion, two flow-limiting stenoses and four perforations of the common femoral artery. There were no additional major vascular complications at 30 days. Overall MACE rate was 2.4%. CONCLUSION: The use of the distal radial approach for secondary access in TAVI is safe, feasible and has several advantages over old access sites.

Distal Radial Artery Access for Coronary and Peripheral Procedures: A Multicenter Experience.

INTRODUCTION: Distal radial access (dRA) has recently gained global popularity as an alternative access route for vascular procedures. Among the benefits of dRA are the low risk of entry site bleeding complications, the low rate of radial artery occlusion, and improved patient and operator comfort. The aim of this large multicenter registry was to demonstrate the feasibility and safety of dRA in a wide variety of routine procedures in the catheterization laboratory, ranging from coronary angiography and percutaneous coronary intervention to peripheral procedures. METHODS: The study comprised 1240 patients who underwent coronary angiography, PCI or noncoronary procedures through dRA in two Hungarian centers from January 2019 to April 2021. Baseline patient characteristics, number and duration of arterial punctures, procedural success rate, crossover rate, postoperative compression time, complications, hospitalization duration, and different learning curves were analyzed. RESULTS: The average patient age was 66.4 years, with 66.8% of patients being male. The majority of patients (74.04%) underwent a coronary procedure, whereas 25.96% were involved in noncoronary interventions. dRA was successfully punctured in 97% of all patients, in all cases with ultrasound guidance. Access site crossover was performed in 2.58% of the patients, mainly via the contralateral dRA. After experiencing 150 cases, the dRA success rate plateaued at >96%. Our dedicated dRA step-by step protocol resulted in high open radial artery (RA) rates: distal and proximal RA pulses were palpable in 99.68% of all patients at hospital discharge. The rate of minor vascular complications was low (1.5%). A threshold of 50 cases was sufficient for already skilled radial operators to establish a reliable procedural method of dRA access. CONCLUSION: The implementation of distal radial artery access in the everyday routine of a catheterization laboratory for coronary and noncoronary interventions is feasible and safe with an acceptable learning curve.

Impact of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and dyspnoea on clinical outcomes in ticagrelor treated patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention in the randomized GLOBAL LEADERS trial.

AIMS: To evaluate long-term safety and efficacy of ticagrelor monotherapy in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) in relation to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at baseline and the occurrence of dyspnoea reported as adverse event (AE) that may lead to treatment non-adherence. METHODS AND RESULTS: This is a non-prespecified, post hoc analysis of the randomized GLOBAL LEADERS trial (n = 15 991), comparing the experimental strategy of 23-month ticagrelor monotherapy following 1-month dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after PCI with the reference strategy of 12-month DAPT followed by 12-month aspirin monotherapy. Impact of COPD and dyspnoea AE (as a time-dependent covariate) on clinical outcomes was evaluated up to 2 years. The primary endpoint was a 2-year all-cause mortality or non-fatal, centrally adjudicated, new Q-wave myocardial infarction. The presence of COPD (n = 832) was the strongest clinical predictor of 2-year all-cause mortality after PCI [hazard ratio (HR) 2.84; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.21-3.66; P adjusted = 0.001] in this cohort (n = 15 991). No differential treatment effects on 2-year clinical outcomes were found in patients with and without COPD (primary endpoint: HR 0.88; 95% CI 0.58-1.35; P = 0.562; P int = 0.952). Overall, at 2 years dyspnoea was reported as an AE in 2101 patients, more frequently among COPD patients, irrespective of treatment allocation (27.2% in experimental arm vs. 14.5% in reference arm, P = 0.001). Its occurrence was not associated with a higher rate of the primary endpoint (P adjusted = 0.640) in the experimental vs. the reference arm. CONCLUSION: In this exploratory analysis, COPD negatively impacted long-term prognosis after PCI. Despite higher incidence of dyspnoea in the experimental arm, in particular among COPD patients, the safety of the experimental treatment strategy appeared not to be affected. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION UNIQUE IDENTIFIER: NCT01813435.

[Myocardial infarction without obstructive coronary artery disease (MINOCA) - prevalence and prognosis]. / Obstruktív koszorúér-betegség nélkül kialakuló heveny szívizominfarktus (MINOCA) ­ gyakoriság és prognózis.

Introduction: There are conflicting data on the prevalence and prognosis of AMI patients with non-obstructive coronary artery disease (MINOCA). Aim: We studied the prevalence and prognosis of MINOCA patients. Method: In the Hungarian Myocardial Infarction Registry (HUMIR) 45,223 patients (pts) with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were found who were treated between Jan 1, 2014, and June 30, 2018, and coronary arteriography was performed. ST-elevation myocardial infarction was diagnosed in 22,469 pts (49.7%). Patients without obstructive coronary artery disease who had no previous myocardial infarction, heart failure, PCI and CABG procedure were selected to the MINOCA group (n = 2003). Patients with obstructive coronary artery disease belonged to the MICAD group (n = 43,220). We investigated clinical characteristics of the patients, overall survival and reinfarction. Survival curves were estimated with the Kaplan-Meier method and were modeled with the Cox proportional hazards model. Results: The proportion of MINOCA pts among all myocardial infarction was by 4.4% higher in the STEMI pts compared to the NSTEMI group (2.0% vs. 6.8%). The MINOCA pts were younger (age 64.0 ± 14.4 vs. 65.5 ± 12.2 years), and the proportion of women was higher (55.7% vs. 36.5%). Hypertension, diabetes mellitus and peripheral artery disease were more common in the MICAD group (79.1% vs. 73.7%, 33.0% vs. 21.2%, and 12% vs. 8%). The mortality was higher among the MICAD pts. In the MINOCA group, the mortality of men did not differ between STEMI and NSTEMI, as opposed to women: women with STEMI had higher mortality than women with NSTEMI. The risk of reinfarction was higher in the MICAD group, especially in NSTEMI, the risk in the MINOCA group was lower, and there was no substantial difference between types. Conclusion: In this real word, retrospective, observational study, we found a significant difference in the prevalence of MINOCA pts according to different types of myocardial infarction. In the MINOCA group, the mortality of women with STEMI was substantially higher. Orv Hetil. 2019; 160(45): 1791-1797.

Does Gender Have Prognostic Value Among Patients with Myocardial Infarction? Analysis of the Data from the Hungarian Myocardial Infarction Registry.

Background: The authors analyzed data from the Hungarian Myocardial Infarction Registry (HUMIR) to examine the potential impact of gender on the treatment and 30-day and 1-year mortality of patients with myocardial infarction (MI). Materials and Methods: The National Registry of Myocardial Infarction included 42,953 patients between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2016; 19,875 of whom were diagnosed with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and 23,078 with non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). The proportion of women was 39% and 41.9% in the two groups, respectively. Logistic regression analysis was performed adjusting for age, the year and month of hospital admission, smoking, as well as for five concomitant diseases and anamnestic data. We found that the odds ratio (OR) of performing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was influenced by age, the year of treatment, prior stroke, and peripheral artery disease (PAD) in both patient groups. Results: Gender had an impact on treatment in both cases; women had significantly fewer PCIs (OR = 0.86 confidence interval [95% CI: 0.77-0.95] in the STEMI group, OR = 0.75 [95% CI: 0.70-0.82] in the NSTEMI group). Age and PCI, PAD, and diabetes mellitus proved to be prognostic factors for 30-day and 1-year mortality in both groups. In the STEMI group, hypertension proved to be of prognostic value for both 30-day and 1-year mortality, whereas prior MI, stroke, and smoking only affected 1-year mortality. Similarly, in the NSTEMI group, prior stroke was also of prognostic value for 30-day and 1-year mortality, whereas prior MI, hypertension and smoking were only associated with 1-year mortality. Conclusions: The independent prognostic value of gender could not be proven for any of the MI types or follow-up periods. In conclusion, gender influenced the treatment of patients with MI but had no significant impact on prognosis in itself.