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Balloon angioplasty fails to provide acceptable long-term results for a significant proportion of patients. An intravascular mechanical support, developed with the aim of preventing restenosis and acute closure of diseased arteries after transluminal angioplasty, was implanted in 44 patients (39 male and five female), aged from 35 to 70 years (mean 56 years) with documented restenosis of native coronary artery (41 stents) and bypass grafts (12 stents). In the group of bypass graft patients there was no local restenosis and no major complication. In patients in whom stents were placed in native coronary arteries, the complication rate was higher (two patients died after coronary bypass surgery). One patient died suddenly at home. Except for one patient, in whom a new lesion developed proximally with extension into the stent, no case of restenosis could be observed.Despite the still relatively high complication rate, we feel that stenting may present a rational approach to the unresolved problem of restenosis after coronary angioplasty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We evaluated the efficacy of flecainide acetate (given intravenously to a maximal dose of2 mg kg and then orally in a dose of 100 mg b.d. or 100 mg t.d.s.) in the conversion to sinus rhythm of 50 patients exhibiting supraventricular arrhythmias (39 with atrial fibrillation, 6 with atrial flutter, 4 with supraventricu tachycardia and onewith supraventricular tachycardia in association with the Wolff—Parkinson—White syndrome). Conversion was achieved in 36 patients (72%) (29 cases with atrial fibrillation, 4 cases with supraventricular tachycardia, 2 cases with atrial flutter and one case with Wolff—Parkinson–White syndrome), over a mean period of 7.4 ± 9 h. The patients in which conversion was achieved had arrhythmias which had been in existence for a shorter time (5.3 ± 9.8 days) than those in which conversion was not achieved (16.7 ± 26.2 days) (P<0.01). The mean dosage of flecainide used to achieve conversion was 2.5 ± 2.36 mg kg. Flecainide appears to be an effective agent for the conversion to sinus rhythm of atrial fibrillation and supraventricular tachycardias. Its efficacy in cases of atrial flutter has not yet been demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]