The Journal of invasive cardiology
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Case Reports
Transluminal removal of an embolized venous catheter fragment with coronary angioplasty tools.
Central venous catheterization has become an important technique for the diagnosis and management of patients requiring intensive medical care. The use of devices to perform this procedure has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in complications. The embolization of foreign bodies to the venous system is not a rare event. This is a report on the transluminal effective and relatively easy removal of a sheath fragment from the right ventricle using standard angioplasty tools.
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The purpose of this study was to retrospectively review the 5-year experience of a university hospital with implantable loop recorders (ILR) for the diagnosis of recurrent, unexplained syncope or presyncope. ⋯ Five-year experience with the ILR in 100 consecutive patients confirms the utility of this device in the diagnosis of recurrent, infrequent, unexplained syncope or presyncope. It helped diagnose 45% of patients with unexplained syncope with negative electrophysiologic and neurologic workup. Most of these patients had an arrhythmogenic etiology to their syncope. Medical therapy, device therapy, and/or catheter ablation helped successfully treat all patients with an arrhythmogenic etiology detected by ILR.
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Review Case Reports
Percutaneous balloon pericardiotomy for the treatment of infected pericardial effusion with tamponade.
Percutaneous balloon pericardiotomy has been used as an alternative for surgically created pericardial window mainly for the management of malignant pericardial effusions in critically ill patients. We describe a patient with purulent pericardial effusion and cardiac tamponade who was treated successfully and without complications with percutaneous balloon pericardiotomy.
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Review Case Reports
Very late bare-metal stent thrombosis. A case report and review of the literature.
Stent thrombosis is a catastrophic event characterized by the acute thrombotic occlusion of a previously-stented segment of a coronary artery. It usually presents as an ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction and/or death, and most commonly occurs within the first several weeks after stent placement. ⋯ While very late stent thrombosis (VLST), occurring beyond 1 year, is not uncommon with the use of drug-eluting stents, it is distinctly unusual with the use of bare-metal stents. We report a case of very late thrombosis of a bare-metal stent occurring 717 days after implantation.