cal need for professional guidelines outlining the appropriate use of atherectomy in order to prevent overutilization of this technology, particularly in high-reimbursement settings.
  The aim of this study was to evaluate the combined impact of race, ethnicity, and sex on in-hospital outcomes using data from the National Inpatient Sample.
 
  Cardiogenic shock (CS) is a major cause of mortality following ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Early revascularization reduces mortality in such patients. Mechanical circulatory support (MCS) devices are increasingly used to hemodynamically support patients during revascularization. Little is known about racial, ethnic, and sex disparities in patients with STEMI and CS.
 
  The National Inpatient Sample was queried from January 2006 to September 2015 for hospitalizations with STEMI and CS. The associations between sex, race, ethnicity, and outcomes were examined using complex-samples multivariate logistic or generalized linear model regressions.
 
  Of 159,339 patients with STEMI and CS, 57,839 (36.3%) were women. In-hospital mortality was higher for all women (range 40% to 45.4%) compared with men (range 30.4% to 34.7%). Women (adjustwith STEMI and CS. Women are less likely to undergo invasive cardiac procedures, including revascularization and MCS. Women as well as Black and Hispanic patients have a higher likelihood of death compared with White men.
  The aim of this study was to determine the impact of invasive approaches and revascularization in patients with cocaine-associated non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI).
 
  The role of invasive approaches in cocaine-associated NSTEMI is uncertain.
 
  This retrospective cohort study identified 3,735 patients with NSTEMI and history of cocaine use from the Nationwide Readmissions Database from 2016 to 2017. Invasive approaches were defined as coronary angiography, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Revascularization was defined as PCI and CABG. The primary efficacy outcome was major adverse cardiac events (MACE), and the primary safety outcome was emergent revascularization. Nonadherence was identified using appropriate International Classification of Diseases-Tenth Revision codes. Two propensity-matched cohorts were generated (noninvasive vs. invasive and noninvasive vs. revascularization) through multivariate logistic regression.
 
  In the prI.
 Invasive approaches and revascularization for cocaine-associated NSTEMI are associated with lower morbidity. A history of medical nonadherence was not associated with a difference in morbidity but was associated with an increased risk for emergent revascularization with PCI.
  Whether there are prognostic links between coronary morphologies and coronary functional abnormalities was examined in ischemia and nonobstructive coronary artery disease (INOCA) patients.
 
  Although INOCA has attracted much attention, little is known about the prognostic impact of coronary morphologies in this disorder.
 
  A total of 329 consecutive INOCA patients were enrolled and underwent spasm provocation testing combined with lactate sampling for diagnosis of epicardial and microvascular spasm (MVS). On the basis of the functional tests, the patients were classified into 4 groups a control group without epicardial spasm or MVS (n=32), MVS alone (n=51), diffuse spasm in≥2 coronary segments (n=204), and focal spasm in 1 segment (n=42). In this population, optical coherence tomography imaging of the left anterior descending coronary artery was performed for evaluation of adventitial vasa vasorum (AVV) and intraplaque neovessels (IPN). Index of microcirculatory resistance was also measured.
 
  MVS frequentlents with INOCA, indicating the importance of both evaluations in this population.Coronary microvascular dysfunction is a highly prevalent condition in both obstructive and nonobstructive coronary artery disease. Intracoronary thermodilution is a promising technique to investigate coronary microvascular (dys)function in vivo and to assess its most important metric microvascular resistance. Here, the authors provide a practical review of bolus and continuous thermodilution for the measurement of coronary flow and microvascular resistance. The authors describe the basic principles of indicator-dilution theory and of coronary thermodilution and detail the practicalities of their application in the catheterization laboratory. Finally, the authors discuss contemporary clinical applications of coronary thermodilution-based microvascular assessment in humans and future perspectives.Atrial fibrillation (AF) causes heart failure, ischemic strokes, and poor quality of life. The number of patients with AF is estimated to increase to 18 million in Europe in 2050. Pharmacological therapy does not cure AF in all patients. Ablative pulmonary vein isolation is recommended for patients with drug-resistant symptomatic paroxysmal AF but is successful in only about 60%. In patients in whom ablative therapy is successful on the long term, recurrence of AF may occur in the first weeks to months after pulmonary vein ablation. The early recurrence (or delayed cure) of AF is not understood but forms the basis for the generally accepted 3-month blinding (or blanking) period after ablation therapy, which is not included in the evaluation of the eventual success rate of the procedures. The underlying pathophysiological processes responsible for early recurrence and the delayed cure are unknown. The implicit assumption of the blinding period is that the AF mechanism in this period is different from the ablation-targeted AF mechanism (ectopy from the pulmonary veins). In this review, we evaluate the temporary and long-lasting pro- and antiarrhythmic effects of each of the pathophysiological processes and interventions (necrosis, ischemia, oxidative stress, edema, inflammation, autonomic nervous activity, tissue repair, mechanical remodeling, and use of antiarrhythmic drugs) occurring in the blinding period that can modulate AF mechanisms.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/740-y-p-pdgfr-740y-p.html  We propose that stretch-reducing ablation scar is a permanent antiarrhythmic mechanism that develops during the blinding period and is the reason for delayed cure.