TCTMD’s Top 10 Most Popular News Stories From 2011
The most popular news stories that appeared on TCTMD in 2011 provide a broad cross-section of the year in interventional cardiology, ranging from stent developments to transcatheter valve data to platelet reactivity studies to new guidelines. Below are the 10 most read stories from the past year in descending order. Interestingly, the 2 most popular stories do not involve new trial data or breaking results, but rather the early stoppage of a study and the end of a company’s stent program.
1. Sponsors Pull the Plug on TRIGGER-PCI
Dealing another potential blow to the emerging field of personalized antiplatelet therapy, the TRIGGER-PCI trial—comparing the drugs clopidogrel and prasugrel in poor-clopidogrel-responders—was stopped early after an interim analysis revealed a primary event rate too low to allow for any meaningful comparison between the 2 agents. The news came on March, 18, 2011, via a joint announcement by the study’s sponsors. (Read more…)
2. Cordis Announces Plans to Discontinue Cypher Stents, Drop Nevo Development
In a surprise move, Cordis Corporation said it will stop making its sirolimus-eluting Cypher and Cypher Select stents by the end of 2011, according to a press release issued on June 15, 2011. In addition, Cordis revealed it no longer intends to pursue the development of another sirolimus-eluting stent, the Nevo stent, which showed promising clinical outcomes compared with a conventional paclitaxel-eluting stent just last year at the EuroPCR meeting in Paris, France. (Read more…)
3. From JACC: TAVI with CoreValve Effective, Safe at 2-Years, Though Mortality a Concern
Patients who underwent transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with the CoreValve self-expanding valve prosthesis for the treatment of severe aortic stenosis obtained sustained clinical benefits at 2-year follow-up, with no structural valve deterioration or change in hemodynamic status, though mortality was somewhat high. The study results were published in the April 19, 2011, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. (Read more…)
4. From TCT 2011: EVOLVE: Bioabsorbable EES Noninferior to Permanent Polymer Version
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.—Results of the randomized EVOLVE trial show that a bioabsorbable polymer everolimus-eluting stent was noninferior to a permanent polymer everolimus-eluting stent for the treatment of de novo atherosclerotic lesions. Ian T. Meredith, MBBS, PhD, of Monash Medical Centre Clayton (Melbourne, Australia), presented results of the EVOLVE trial, which was designed to compare the Synergy Everolimus-Eluting Coronary Stent System with the Promus Element stent. (Read more…)
5. From TCTMD: After GRAVITAS: Is There a Future for Functional Platelet Testing?
GRAVITAS had the potential to change practice. After mixed signals from several small observational studies, here were data from the first large randomized trial to close the circle between pharmacodynamic and clinical data by rigorously testing whether adjusting clopidogrel dose based on results of a point-of-care functional test would improve patient outcomes. The answer, reported by lead investigator Matthew J. Price, MD, of Scripps Clinic (La Jolla, CA), was no, bringing with it larger implications for the future of this nascent field. (Read more…)
6. From JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions: Six Months Sufficient for Dual Antiplatelet Therapy
Patients treated with zotarolimus-eluting stents (ZES) suffer no excess late ischemic events if they take dual antiplatelet therapy for 6 months instead of 12 months or longer, according to a study in the October 2011 issue of JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions. (Read more…)
7. From Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions: ‘Mother-Child’ Technique Improves Success for PCI in Challenging Lesions
Inserting a 4-Fr catheter into a 6-Fr guiding catheter—the so-called mother-child technique—greatly improves the success rate for treating lesions in which standard methods have failed. The “4-in-6” system may become a viable alternative for highly calcified, angular, or tortuous lesions, according to a paper published online March 1, 2011, ahead of print in Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions. (Read more…)
8. From ACC/i2 Summit 2011: Radial vs. Femoral Angioplasty: Still RIVALs
NEW ORLEANS, LA—In the largest randomized trial to compare transradial and transfemoral access, researchers demonstrated that while the 2 approaches show similar overall safety and effectiveness, the radial approach for angiography and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) yields lower vascular complications and may be preferred at high-volume centers and for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Results from the study, which was published simultaneously online in the Lancet, were presented during a late-breaking trial session at the annual American College of Cardiology Scientific Session/i2 Summit on April 4, 2011. (Read more…)
9. From NEJM: PROSPECT Published: Combined IVUS Identifies Risky Nonculprit ACS Lesions
In patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) who undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), both culprit and nonculprit lesions are equally likely to spur subsequent adverse events over 3 years, according to a paper published in the January 20, 2011, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. While nonculprit lesions responsible for such unanticipated events were generally mild on angiography, they often possessed distinctive characteristics on intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) indicative of vulnerable plaque. (Read more…)
10. From JACC/Circulation/CCI: Updated PCI, CABG Guidelines Highlight Interventional-Surgical Collaboration
Revised guidelines for both percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, produced by an expert joint task force from several prominent medical societies, feature a consensus approach to revascularization choices for situations where the interventional and surgical fields overlap. (Read more…)
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Jason R. Kahn, the former News Editor of TCTMD, worked at CRF for 11 years until his death in 2014…
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