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The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed the way patients seek medical attention and how medical services are provided. We sought to compare characteristics, clinical course, and outcomes of patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) during the pandemic compared with before it. This is a multicenter, retrospective cohort study of consecutive COVID-19 negative patients with AMI in Lithuania from March 11, 2020 to April 20, 2020 compared with patients admitted with the same diagnosis during the same period in 2019. All patients underwent angiography. Six-month follow-up was obtained for all patients. A total of 269 patients were included in this study, 107 (40.8%) of whom presented during the pandemic. Median pain-to-door times were significantly longer (858 [quartile 1=360, quartile 3 = 2,600] vs 385.5 [200, 745] minutes, p

The Cardiovalve (Cardiovalve Ltd., Or Yehuda, Israel) is a transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) system implanted through a fully percutaneous transseptal approach, which may overcome most of the limitations of current TMVR systems. The Cardiovalve is based on a low-profile design of 3

Nowadays it is believed that atherosclerotic plaque formation and coronary artery thrombosis are a result of a cascade of inflammatory processes. Leukocytes are one of the main mediators of the inflammation. We aimed to assess the correlation between leukocytes and long-term mortality in patients

Patients with STEMI undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) frequently have suboptimal platelet inhibition in the early hours after the ticagrelor loading dose. It has been hypothesized that early loading dose administration optimizes platelet inhibition in PPCI and, therefore

Advances in stenting technology and procedural technique are changing the role of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in the treatment of left main coronary artery (LMCA) disease. The location of the lesion in LMCA has a great influence on the stenting strategy. In many cases, the length of the

Inflammation plays a key role in the process of the formation of the atherosclerosis and in the pathogenesis of acute coronary syndrome. Myocardial necrosis induces the release of proinflammatory markers. It may even lead to tissue damage and eventually to the development of undesirable events such

Bifurcation percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) remains a challenging frontier in interventional cardiology. In percutaneous coronary intervention for de novo coronary non-left main bifurcation lesions, the optimal technique for stenting is still a matter of discussion. We sought to determine

The GRACE score is a prospectively studied scoring system used for risk stratification of patients diagnosed with ACS to estimate their in-hospital and 6-month to 3-year mortality. The SYNTAX I score is used to estimate the burden and complexity of coronary artery disease (CAD). The SYNTAX I score

Most attempts to intervene on coronary chronic total occlusions fail because the wire cannot cross the occlusion. Three main strategies can be used to cross a CTO: antegrade wire escalation, antegrade dissection/re-entry and retrograde. The basic underlying principle of the hybrid approach (HA) is

We used virtual histology-intravascular ultrasound (VH-IVUS) to evaluate the relation between coronary artery remodeling pattern and plaque components in 46 patients. We divided the patients into two groups according to the remodeling pattern as positive remodeling (PR, remodeling index>1.05) (n=18

Coronary plaque composition cannot be assessed accurately using gray-scale intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). Using virtual histology IVUS (VH-IVUS), a comparison of coronary plaque composition between acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and stable angina pectoris (SAP) was performed. Pre-intervention

Bioabsorbable stents - bioabsorbable vascular scaffolds (BVS) are a relatively new technology, which has many upsides when comparing it to metallic stents. After doing its function (revascularization) it also repairs the wall of the artery and then absorbs. It basically overcomes all of the

Stenting — it is a widespread procedure for patients that are suffering from coronary artery disease. Possibility to use drugs-covered stents, improved stenting safety and treatment efficiency. Using second generation Biolimus drugs-covered Stents A9 is associated reduced risk of stent thrombosis