No abstract

The effects of pre-motion silent period (PSP) on dynamic force exertion were studied in ten healthy subjects performing ballistic elbow extensions. The experiments were designed to evaluate the significance of mean differences between the averaged dynamic force curves of two groups: PSP-presence groups and PSP-absence groups. The presence of PSP was judged quantitatively and automatically by means of a newly developed method using statistical analysis. The results indicated that there were two effects of PSP on dynamic force exertion: one was a reducing effect, observed prior to the movement; the other was a reinforcing effect, observed in the first part of the ballistic movement. The duration of the reinforcement was significantly correlated with the duration of the reducing effect of PSP. The findings suggested that the reinforcement of dynamic force may be produced by the pre-stretch of agonistic muscles caused by prior force reduction due to PSP occurrence. The fact that PSP plays an important role in dynamic force exertion suggests that PSP may be incorporated in the central motor control system designed to interrupt the background activity, to stretch the agonist and to reinforce the dynamic force.

A significant difference was found between the GuardWire Plus and control groups with respect to the total incidence of distal embolization, indicating that GuardWire Plus angiographically improved myocardial perfusion without demonstrating the preventive effect of myocardial damage.

The overall survival rate of CLI patients was acceptable and the recurrence rate of CLI was extremely low once complete wound healing was achieved. Nonambulatory status and age >75 years can serve as predictors of death even after complete wound healing is achieved.

Women and patients requiring small stents failed to maintain primary patency when treated with self-expanding nitinol stents for CTO lesions in the SFPA. Although primary patency was low, the secondary patency rate was acceptable.

IVUS guidance of DES placement in femoropopliteal lesions can offer useful predictors of restenosis at 1 year. The utility of distal lumen CSA and the axial symmetry index in the prediction of restenosis after femoropopliteal DES placement should be confirmed in a larger cohort.

No abstract

Four cases of successful coronary angioplasty for anomalous coronary arteries, including dextrocardia associated with three-vessel disease, single left coronary artery with proximal left anterior descending lesion, anomalous right coronary artery (RCA) from adjacent left coronary sinus of Valsalva associated with proximal RCA lesion, and anomalous left circumflex angulated lesion bifurcated from the RCA, were encountered. Four cases with 8 target lesions who had a mean age of 63.5 +/- 11.5 years old are presented. All the targets lesions were completely dilated through balloon angioplasty, including use of a newly developed support device for cases with large jeopardized myocardium. The factors for complete revascularization were appropriate selection of catheters and originality and ingenuity of procedural technique based on the anatomic characteristics.