Background-It has been suggested by clinical, epidemiological, and experimental in vitro studies that homocysteine potentiates thrombin generation. This prothrombotic effect however has not previously been demonstrated in patients presenting with acute coronary syndromes (ACS). Methods and Results-Patients with ACS (n ϭ117) presenting with confirmed acute myocardial infarction (MI) (n ϭ57) or unstable angina pectoris (UAP) (n ϭ60) were consecutively recruited together with patients (n ϭ18) in whom the presenting chest pain was not of cardiac origin (NCP), included as controls. Plasma samples were collected on admission and before clinical intervention. Homocysteine was assayed by high performance liquid chromatography, and both Factor VIIa and prothrombin fragment F1ϩ2 were analyzed by ELISA. There were significant elevations in F1ϩ2 in MI (PϽ0.001) and UAP (Pϭ0.003), and modest elevations in Factor VIIa in UAP (PϽ0.05) compared with NCP but no differences in homocysteine levels among those groups. On dividing patients with ACS into quartiles of homocysteine, there was a stepwise increase in F1ϩ2 (PϽ0.0001) and of Factor VIIa (PϽ0.05). There were significant correlations in ACS between homocysteine and F1ϩ2 (rϭ0.46, PϽ0.0001), homocysteine and Factor VIIa (rϭ0.24, PϽ0.01), and F1ϩ2 and Factor VIIa (rϭ0.41, PϽ0.0001). There was no correlation between homocysteine and either F1ϩ2 (rϭϪ0.15, Pϭ0.57) or Factor VIIa (rϭ0.22, Pϭ0.37) in the NCP patients. Conclusions-Elevated plasma homocysteine is associated with and may cause elevated Factor VIIa and thrombin generation in patients presenting with ACS. These findings suggest an explanation for the prothrombotic effect of homocysteine in ACS.

Patients with anaemia undergoing PPCI are at a higher risk of an adverse outcome. Anaemia is a simple and powerful marker of poor prognosis. Although anaemia (based on the WHO definitions) does not appear to be an independent predictor of all-cause mortality or major adverse cardiac events after PPCI on multivariate analysis, there appears to be a threshold value of Hb among men, below which there is an associated increased risk for PPCI.

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Background Cardiac MR stress perfusion remains a qualitative technique in clinical practice due to technical and postprocessing challenges. However, automated inline perfusion mapping now permits myocardial blood flow (MBF, ml/g/min) quantification on‐the‐fly without user input. Purpose To investigate the diagnostic performance of this novel technique in detecting occlusive coronary artery disease (CAD) in patients scheduled to undergo coronary angiography. Study Type Prospective, observational. Subjects Fifty patients with suspected CAD and 24 healthy volunteers. Field Strength 1.5T. Sequence "Dual" sequence multislice 2D saturation recovery. Assessment All patients underwent cardiac MR with perfusion mapping and invasive coronary angiography; the healthy volunteers had MR with perfusion mapping alone. Statistical Tests Comparison between numerical variables was performed using an independent t‐test. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves were generated for transmyocardial, endocardial stress MBF, and myocardial perfusion reserve (MPR, the stress:rest MBF ratio) to diagnose severe (>70%) stenoses as measured by 3D quantitative coronary angiography (QCA). ROC curves were compared by the method of DeLong et al. Results Compared with volunteers, patients had lower stress MBF and MPR even in vessels with <50% stenosis (2.00 vs. 3.08 ml/g/min, respectively). As stenosis severity increased (<50%, 50–70%, >70%), MBF and MPR decreased. To diagnose occlusive (>70%) CAD, endocardial and transmyocardial stress MBF were superior to MPR (area under the curve 0.92 [95% CI 0.86–0.97] vs. 0.90 [95% CI 0.84–0.95] and 0.80 [95% CI 0.72–0.87], respectively). An endocardial threshold of 1.31 ml/g/min provided a per‐coronary artery sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of 90%, 82%, 50%, and 98%, with a per‐patient diagnostic performance of 100%, 66%, 57%, and 100%, respectively. Data Conclusion Perfusion mapping can diagnose occlusive CAD with high accuracy and, in particular, high sensitivity and NPV make it a potential "rule‐out" test. Level of Evidence: 1 Technical Efficacy Stage: 2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2019;50:756–762.

We report the development of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) that is specific for factor VIIa (FVIIa). This assay uses a neoantigen specific capture antibody directed to the amino acid peptide sequence N terminal to the FVII cleavage activation site. The antibody exhibits ∼3,000-fold greater reactivity to FVIIa than FVII on a molar basis. Experiments using plasma with added (exogenous) human FVIIa gave quantitative recovery in the ELISA over a range of 0.20 to 3.2 ng/mL of FVIIa. The intra- and inter-assay coefficient of variation (CVs) of the ELISA are 4.5% and 9.8%, respectively. The ELISA shows excellent correlation (r = .99) with a functional assay (using recombinant soluble tissue factor) in detecting FVIIa added to plasma over the range 0.05 to 18.0 ng/mL. However, a major discrepancy exists between the two assays when normal endogenous plasma concentrations of FVIIa are measured. Using normal plasma (n = 14) the functional assay reported 3.10 ± 0.30 ng/mL (mean ± SE) whereas only 0.025 ± 0.010 ng/mL was detected in the same samples by the immunoassay. Patients (n = 43) presenting with acute coronary syndromes (myocardial infarction and unstable angina) exhibited elevations (P < .05) in immunologically detected FVIIa, 0.093 ± 0.013 ng/mL (mean ± SE) compared to patient controls (n = 20) contemporaneously admitted with noncardiac chest pain, 0.048 ± 0.007 ng/mL (mean ± SE). These elevations in the acute coronary syndromes were accompanied by increased (P < .05) and correlating prothrombin fragment F1 + 2 levels (Spearman correlation coefficient rs = .4, P < .01), demonstrating that thrombin generation is certainly associated with, and may even be caused by, extrinsic pathway activation.

Background: An effective approach to fall prevention should involve an assessment of environmental as well as patient-related characteristics. Objective: To study the effect of age and ward design on fall characteristics among medical inpatients. Methods: In a prospective open observational study over 1 year, we studied falls on three medical wards. Wards A and B are nuclear designed, and C is longitudinal. Results: We recorded 199 falls involving 167 fallers. Fifty-four (27.1%) involved patients under 65 years. Most falls were intrinsic (60.8%) and involved elderly male patients (male/female ratio 97/48 vs. 24/30; p = 0.009). We identified no age differences in relation to location, activity, preceding fall, classification, time, consequences, and intervention required. On ward C, most falls occurred in the bed areas (bays and cubicles), but on wards A and B a higher proportion occurred in bathroom, corridor, and dayroom (C vs. A/B 87.9 vs. 73.7/62.0%; p = 0.04/p = 0.004). On ward C, activities of daily living around the bed significantly preceded falls (C vs. A/B 44.6 vs. 25.9/24.1%; p = 0.03/p = 0.01). Most falls were unwitnessed (C vs. A/B 10 vs. 21/20; p = 0.002/p = 0.0009). Conclusions: Intrinsic falls are the commonest; however, differences exist in fall demographics between wards, and this must be recognized to enhance the effectiveness of fall prevention programmes.

Objective We sought to describe the prevalence, management strategies and evaluate the prognosis of patients with iatrogenic catheter‐induced ostial coronary artery dissection (ICOCAD). Background ICOCAD is a rare but potentially devastating complication of cardiac catheterisation. The clinical manifestations of ICOCAD vary from asymptomatic angiographic findings to abrupt vessel closure leading to myocardial infarction and death. Methods 55,968 patients who underwent coronary angiography over a 10‐year period were screened for ICOCAD as defined by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The management and all‐cause mortality were retrieved from local and national databases. Results The overall prevalence of ICOCAD was 0.09% (51/55,968 patients). Guide catheters accounted for 75% (n = 37) of cases. Half of the ICOCAD cases involved the right coronary artery while the remaining were related to left main stem (23/51; 45%) and left internal mammary artery (2/51; 4%). Two‐thirds of ICOCAD were high grade (type D, E, and F). The majority of cases were type F dissections (n = 18; 66%), of which two third occurred in females in their 60s. The majority of ICOCAD patients (42/51; 82%) were treated with percutaneous coronary intervention while the remaining underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (3/51; 6%) or managed conservatively (6/51; 12%). Three deaths occurred during the index admission while 48/51 patients (94.1%) were safely discharged without further mortality over a median follow‐up of 3.6 years. Conclusions ICOCAD is a rare but life‐threatening complication of coronary angiography. Timely recognition and prompt bailout PCI is a safe option for majority of patients with good clinical outcomes.

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