Like a bolt from the blue ischemic stroke strikes a patient unpredictably. The consequences are devastating: stroke is the number one cause of serious disabilities in adulthood - and, in Europe alone, someone suffers a stroke every 20 seconds. Thrombolysis ensures that blood clots in the brain dissolve. However, the majority of patients do not profit from this therapy.
Bypass or stent? In Germany alone, every year 370.000 patients have to decide which kind of surgery they will undergo. The Syntax study (Synergy between PCI with taxus and cardiac surgery), presented in September, looked at 1.720 patients and aims to provide help to answer this crucial question.
Two members of the Heart Center at the University of Leipzig teamed up during Medica for a tour de force presentation on Future Trends in Cardiac Surgery. "The aim of the game is opening the chest through little keyholes to operate in the most minimally invasive way possible and avoid sternotomy," said Prof. Friedrich Mohr, Program Director at the Leipzig Heart Center, who review new surgical…
Surviving a heart attack depends upon where you live in Europe. For cardiologists that is unacceptable. A majority of European countries can deliver life-saving primary percutaneous coronary interventions (P-PCI), yet too often these centres are closed over weekends or after working hours - when 50% of all myocardial infarctions occur.
Type 1 diabetes is a life-long autoimmune disease with onset in early childhood. The diagnosis will initially turn the everyday life of children and their families topsy-turvy due to blood glucose testing, insulin injections, thorough calculation of meals, etc. It takes time before all these new and often frightening procedures become part of the daily routine of small diabetics.
Concerns over whether the tests a treatment undergoes before general release are enough to ensure its long-term safety have been raised in an editorial by Dr Vijay Sharma, Clinical Editor of BMJ Clinical Evidence. He suggests that treatments should be introduced gradually so that evidence can be built up and the treatment can find its proper niche.
Echocardiography is the work horse of non-invasive cardiovascular diagnostics. Has this developed?
Studies show promise for fast, 5-day therapy for early-stage breast cancer patients
Voyager NC, a new coronary dilation catheter with a high-pressure capability designed to optimise coronary artery treatment during angioplasty procedure, can be used for both pre-dilatation and post-dilatation procedures, the manufacturer Abbott explains, adding: "Surgeons can use it to navigate tortuous anatomy and open up lesions before a stent is delivered, or expand a stent more precisely…
Evalve, Inc., the leader in the development of devices for the percutaneous repair of cardiac valves, announced the first enrollment in the ACCESS-Europe study, a post-market observational study of the MitraClip therapy in Europe. The system is the first commercially available treatment option for non-surgical mitral valve repair for patients suffering from the effects of functional and…
Jede Behandlung mit einem Ballonkatheter provoziert die Narbenbildung an der Gefäßinnenwand, weil durch das Dehnen des verstopften Gefäßrohres mikrofeine Verletzungen entstehen. Unangenehme Folge sind erneute Verengungen der Arterien, weitere Gefäßweitungen werden nötig...Radiologen der Berliner Charité entwickelten nun einen Gefäßkatheter, der die Narbenbildung in den Gefäßwänden…
For the last nine months, Jens Timmermann MD PhD, Head of the Interventional Radiology Department, has been using micro-invasive technology to treat these patients.
The hugely increasing numbers of diabetics is a medical and financial burden worldwide. Diabetics can, for example, suffer eye and kidney problems and more - five percent of them develop vascular diseases, leading to lower limb and feet ulcerations, which frequently result in amputations if not treated in time. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) can heal ulcers and, because it is…
HDR brachytherapy patients require at least six hours between treatment sessions to enable the body to recover. A leading provincial cancer hospital has become the first in the UK - and one of the first in Europe - to deliver two high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy radiotherapy treatments in the same day.
Investigating the appropriate use of procedures to open narrowed coronary arteries, e.g. angioplasty and stenting, researchers at UCSF (University of California, USA) found that less than 50% of Medicare patients had documented non-invasive stress testing prior to elective percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI (clinical name for these procedures).
Patients who have suffered strokes due to stenosis of the carotid artery are at a high risk of suffering further strokes. Many of these second strokes could be avoided if the stenosis was treated in time. This can be done in two ways: Surgical removal of plaque during the endarterectomy, or catheter treatment with a stent being inserted under local anaesthetic, to prevent another stenosis…
'An effective, safe treatment for prophylaxis of restenosis in periphery and cardiology' — new generation of Endovascular Brachytherapy gains full CE-certification. Constricted blood vessels (stenosis and restenosis) can now sustainably be treated and kept open through the local treatment with beta radiation.
Transapical aortic valve implantation (TA-AVI) is a new therapeutic strategy, which has been implemented successfully into clinical practice in several hundred patients suffering symptomatic aortic stenosis and an increase perioperative risk during the past two years. The Edwards SAPIEN™ prosthesis has been used.
Catheter ablation is still associated with a substantial amount of complications, and more failure then sometimes reported. Perforation with catheters is especially important in atrial fibrillation. Robotic navigation could reduce these complications.
Stefan G Ruehm, Kambiz Nael, Derek Lohan and Henrik J Michaely* describe impressive images that benefit patient treatment
They are one of the major threats in today's hospital: tiny pathogens that hide out in catheters, in ventilation tubes, on instruments or on the keyboards of medical technological equipment only waiting to attack patients whose immune system is already weakened. This week, EH Online will take a closer look at nosocomial infections, their causes, their effects and the available ways and means to…
This May the Brussels-based Crossroads Institute for Cardiac and Vascular Medical Education launched two new educational courses on the prevention of amputation (peripheral vascular disease) and on improving the treatment of women with cardiovascular disease.
Among its many specialties, the 909-bed AZ Sint-Jan AV Hospital in Bruges, Belgium, has a high level of expertise in cardiac catheterisations and electrophysiology.
Along with paediatric radiology, interventional radiology will have a high profile at the 89th German Radiology Congress and 5th Joint Congress with the Austrian Radiology Society. Congress presidents Professor Dierk Vorwerk and Professor Richard Fotter outlined what's on the agenda for the expected 6,900 visitors. Training, they pointed out, will aim at those preparing to specialise in…