Stenting of ULMCA is feasible and offers good long-term outcome. Implantation of DES for ULMCA decreased the risk of long-term MACCE, and particularly improved survival in patients with distal ULMCA disease.

In patients with unprotected left main coronary artery stenosis with low and medium complexity of coexisting coronary artery disease, stenting offers numerically, but statistically nonsignificant, favorable long-term outcome up to 10 years in terms of safety and efficacy outcome measures, therefore, constitutes an alternative therapy for CABG.

No abstract

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) can afect various systems and organs. The most severe forms of the disease afect the kidneys, the central nervous system, and the heart. Cardiac and cardiovascular system diseases are inter alia caused by atherosclerosis, vasculitis, and thromboembolic events. Patients with SLE are at a higher risk of developing accelerated atherosclerosis. This process in SLE patients cannot be explained solely based on classical risk factors. Recently, some adipocytokines/adipokines have been indicated in the development of atherosclerosis, inlammation, and immune processes. It has also been postulated that adipokines might regulate the immune response and hence the atherogenic process. In this work, the factors contributing to accelerated atherosclerosis in SLE patients with special respect to vasculitis/vascular injury are presented, and selected adipocytokines, that is leptin, resistin, and adiponectin, with their relation to atherosclerosis and SLE, are under discussion.

The exclusion criteria were as follows: concomitant chronic liver or kidney diseases, collagenoses, thyroid disease, immunosuppressive therapy (during the past 12 months), history of malignancy, and acute or chronic inflammatory disease (excluded on the basis of medical history, medical examination, and determination of serum C -reactive protein levels, which were within the reference range in our patients, ie, <5 mg/l). Patients with psoriasis were also excluded. 1 The study protocol included: 1) a comparative analysis of laboratory results in the CAD, PAD, and CPAD groups; and 2) evaluation of correlations between the investigated parameters in the CAD, PAD, and CPAD groups.The study was approved by the local bioethics committee. All patients provided their written informed consent to blood sampling. Statistical analysisThe Shapiro-Wilk test was used to assess the normality of distribution, followed by the calculation of the arithmetic mean and standard deviation. The following tests were performed: Mann-Whitney test, Spearman correlation coefficient, Kruskal-Wallis test, t test, and 1-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Differences with a P value of 0.05 or lower were considered significant. We revealed differences between the mean and median values for a few parameters; however, as they were comparable for most studied parameters, mean (SD) values were calculated in the comparative analysis.Results and discussion The Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that the differences in the mean levels of annexin V between the CAD, PAD, and CPAD groups approached statistical significance (P =