Raymond Gibbons, MD (Mayo Clinic, Pres/American Heart Association), said COURAGE trial findings suggest that "hundreds of thousands of Americans with stable angina who received coronary stents did not need them."
Martin B. Leon, MD, violated academic ethics of the highest order by leaking results of the COURAGE trial prematurely, denigrating its design, discrediting its results, to protect pocketbooks of interventional cardiologists and stent industry. Sanctions
Statins have pleiotropic effects: anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, antithrombotic, and vascular activity, & may improve left ventricular myocardial function & left ventricular diastolic function by increasing vascular elasticity.
A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (ACC/AHA/SCAI Writing Committee to Update the 2001 Guidelines for Percutaneous Coronary Intervention)
Techniques for penetrating chronic total occlusion (CTO) to ensure complete revascularization using percutaneous coronary techniques. Success is only 50–75%, even in the best hands. How to improve?
Articles on the various questions, problems, and controversies currently plaguing drug-eluting stents: deployment techniques, stent qualities, antiplatelet therapies, and etiologies of post-DES thrombosis and restenosis.
We must optimize stent deployment & maintain a registry of how well (or poorly) we use drug-eluting stents. Instead of asking “Which stent?” or “How much anti-platelet therapy?” we must ask “How effectively are we deploying our stents?”