Clinical Chemistry
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Clinical Chemistry 50: 1492-1494, 2004; 10.1373/clinchem.2004.034199
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (1)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Biasucci, L. M.
Right arrow Articles by Biondi-Zoccai, G. G.L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Biasucci, L. M.
Right arrow Articles by Biondi-Zoccai, G. G.L.
Related Collections
Right arrow Evidence Based Laboratory Medicine and Test Utilization
Right arrow Heart Health and the Clinical Laboratory
Right arrow Proteomics and Protein Markers
Right arrow Lipids, Lipoproteins, and Cardiovascular Risk Factors
(Clinical Chemistry. 2004;50:1492-1494.)
© 2004 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Editorials

Preprocedural C-Reactive Protein for Risk Prediction Before Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI): A European Perspective

Luigi M. Biasuccia and Giuseppe G.L. Biondi-Zoccai

1 Institute of Cardiology, Catholic University, Rome, Italy

aAddress correspondence to this author at: Institute of Cardiology, Catholic University, Largo A. Gemelli 8, 00168 Rome, Italy. Fax 39-063055535; e-mail lmbiasucci@virgilio.it.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with stent implantation is a mainstay in the management of severe coronary artery atherosclerotic disease. Indeed, PCI currently outperforms coronary artery bypass grafting, and the use of interventional procedures is projected to increase even more with the adoption of new-generation drug-eluting stents (1). Even when performed by the best operators and with the most recent technologies, however, PCI may be fraught by significant short- and long-term risks of adverse events (1).

Two major processes are involved in adverse events following PCI: (a) coronary restenosis, and (b) progression of disease on the same vessel or in another vessel (2). The latter is central to the understanding of ischemic heart disease and to its primary and secondary prevention, and has been addressed in numerous studies. On the other hand, the long-term outlook after PCI can be affected by neo-intimal proliferation at the site of PCI, leading to in-stent restenosis, recurrent angina, and ultimately, target-lesion revascularization (3). In this issue, Rittersma et al. (4) address specifically the issue of in-stent restenosis. Although restenosis is a decreasing problem with the use of drug-eluting stents, the cost of these devices is high, and in most European countries only a minority of stents are drug-eluting, making prediction of restenosis a still-hot clinical and biological problem.

To accurately stratify patients according to their risk of future adverse events, a quest for risk predictors is ongoing worldwide, but only a few powerful and independent predictors of early and late major adverse cardiovascular events have been found. These include traditional risk factors, such as acute coronary instability, diabetes mellitus, reference . . . [Full Text of this Article]






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.