Compared with on-label use, off-label use of drug-eluting stents is associated with a higher rate of adverse outcomes during the index admission and at 1 year. Stent thrombosis occurred predominantly in patients who underwent off-label drug-eluting stent implantation. Clinicians should be cautious about extrapolating the benefits of drug-eluting stents over bare-metal stents observed in randomized clinical trials to higher-risk clinical settings that have not been assessed.

Renal function is an independent and powerful predictor of bleeding and ischemic complications in the era of DES and contemporary antithrombotic therapy in patients undergoing PCI. The low use of guideline-recommended drugs among patients with CKD undergoing PCI might contribute to these adverse outcomes and warrants further evaluation.

Purpose. The Pediatric Vision Scanner (PVS) detects strabismus by identifying ocular fixation in both eyes simultaneously. This study was undertaken to assess the ability of the PVS to identify patients with amblyopia or strabismus, particularly anisometropic amblyopia with no measurable strabismus. Methods. The PVS test, administered from 40 cm and requiring 2.5 seconds of attention, generated a binocularity score (BIN, 0%-100%). We tested 154 patients and 48 controls between the ages of 2 and 18 years. BIN scores of amblyopic children and controls were measured, and 21 children received sequential PVS measurements to detect any changes in BIN resulting from amblyopia treatment. Results. With the pass/refer threshold set at BIN 60%, sensitivity and specificity were 96% for the detection of amblyopia or strabismus. Assuming a 5% prevalence of amblyopia or strabismus, the inferred positive and negative predictive values of the PVS were 56% and 100%, respectively. Fixation accuracy was significantly reduced in amblyopic eyes. In anisometropic amblyopia patients treated successfully, the BIN improved to 100%. Conclusions. The PVS identified children with amblyopia or strabismus with high sensitivity and specificity, while successful treatment restored normal BIN scores in amblyopic patients without strabismus. The results support the hypothesis that the PVS detects strabismus and amblyopia directly. Future strategies for screening by nonspecialists may thus be based on diagnostic detection of amblyopia and strabismus rather than the estimation of risk factors, allowing for rapid, accurate identification of children with amblyopia early in life when it is most amenable to treatment.

Background-Although cardiac troponin (cTn) elevation is associated with periprocedural complications during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in the setting of acute coronary syndromes, the prevalence and prognostic significance of preprocedural cTn elevation among patients with stable coronary artery disease undergoing PCI are unknown. Methods and Results-Between July 2004 and September 2006, 7592 consecutive patients who underwent attempted stent placement at 47 hospitals throughout the United States were enrolled in a prospective multicenter registry. We analyzed the frequency of an elevated cTn immediately before PCI and its relationship to in-hospital and 1-year outcomes among patients who underwent PCI for either stable angina or a positive stress test. Among the stable coronary artery disease population (nϭ2382, 31.4%), 142 (6.0%) had a cTn level above the upper limit of normal before the procedure. Compared with patients who had normal baseline cTn, patients with elevated cTn had a higher rate of in-hospital death or myocardial infarction (13.4% versus 5.6%; PϽ0.001) and a trend toward higher rates of urgent repeat PCI (1.4% versus 0.2%; Pϭ0.06). In multivariable analyses adjusted for demographic, clinical, angiographic, and procedural factors, baseline cTn elevation remained independently associated with the composite of death or myocardial infarction at hospital discharge (odds ratio, 2.1; 95% confidence interval, 1.2 to 3.8; Pϭ0.01) and at the 1-year follow-up (odds ratio, 2.0; 95% confidence interval, 1.2 to 3.3; Pϭ0.005). Conclusions-Baseline elevation of cTn is relatively common among patients with stable coronary artery disease undergoing PCI and is an independent prognostic indicator of ischemic complications. If these data are confirmed in future studies, consideration should be given to routine testing of cTn before performance of PCI in this patient population. (Circulation. 2008;118:632-638.)