Background: Women with coronary artery disease are less likely to be revascularized than men based on angiography alone. Recent studies have shown that female patients have higher fractional flow reserve (FFR) values for a given severity of coronary stenosis. However, gender differences in coronary revascularization rates following FFR assessment are unknown. Methods: The nationwide inpatient sample database was used to identify all patients who underwent FFR in the United States between January 2009 and December 2010. We used propensity score matching to compare revascularization rates and in-hospital outcomes among men and women undergoing FFR measurements. Results: Among 3712 patients who underwent FFR during the study period, 1235 matched pairs of men and women were identified. The overall revascularization rates were lower in women than men (40.1% vs. 52.8%, p < 0.01). Women were less likely to undergo either percutaneous (35.2% vs. 45.6%, p < 0.01) or surgical revascularization following FFR than men (5.2% vs. 7.4%, p = 0.03). Women had a nonsignificant trend toward higher in-hospital mortality (0.8% vs. 0.5%, p = 0.32) and significantly higher rates of access site hematoma formation (2.7% vs. 0.8%, p < 0.01) compared to men. Conclusion: In conclusion, this large nationwide study reveals that coronary revascularization rates are significantly lower in women than in men even after functional assessment with FFR.

Acute pulmonary embolism (PE) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Pharmacomechanical lysis (PML) with the Bashir endovascular catheter has been shown to reduce the right ventricular/left ventricular (RV/LV) ratio in patients with intermediate-risk (IR) PE. Nevertheless, the original protocol required a 5-hour postprocedural infusion of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (r-tPA) and intensive care unit monitoring. The RESCUE-II (Safety and Feasibility of On-The-Table Pharmacomechanical Lysis for Acute Intermediate-Risk Pulmonary Embolism) study aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of on-the-table PML using bolus-only r-tPA, without postprocedural infusion, in patients with IR-PE. In this single-center, prospective study, symptomatic patients with IR-PE (computed tomographic-derived RV/LV ratio ≥0.9) were treated with bolus-only r-tPA via the Bashir catheter (4 mg per lung, 8 mg total for bilateral PE). The primary efficacy endpoint was the change in RV/LV ratio at 48 hours, and the primary safety endpoint was major bleeding within 72 hours. Nine patients were enrolled and successfully treated. The median procedure time was 39 ± 13.4 minutes. At 48 hours, the mean RV/LV ratio decreased from 1.66 ± 0.56 to 1.27 ± 0.41 (P = 0.0001), and pulmonary artery obstruction, measured by the Refined Modified Miller index, reduced by 29.2%. There were no major bleeding events. One patient had a minor access site hematoma, managed with manual compression. On-the-table PML using the Bashir catheter effectively reduced RV/LV ratio and PA obstruction. The procedure was safe, with no major bleeding complications, and offers a rapid, cost-effective treatment option for patients with acute IR-PE.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a common disorder affecting approximately 900,000 new patients in the United States each year. Although the mainstay of treatment of DVT patients is therapeutic anticoagulation, some patients remain significantly symptomatic and therefore require more advanced interventions such as catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT). We describe a case series of 13 patients with acute symptomatic inferior vena cava (IVC) and iliofemoral DVT that were treated with CDT using the Bashir Endovascular Catheter (BEC). We report the first-in-human use of BEC, which is a novel pharmacomechanical thrombolysis device. All the treated patients had complete and rapid resolution of their symptoms with excellent venous outflow. Despite initial promising results, larger studies using this catheter design will be needed to assess the role of BEC-directed therapy on rates of post-thrombotic syndrome and bleeding complications.

Background: Invasive cardiopulmonary exercise testing (iCPET) provides valuable insight into dyspnea in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary disease, in part through an increased relationship of minute ventilation to CO₂ production (V_E/VCO₂). Obesity lowers the V_E/VCO₂ in patients without cardiopulmonary disease; however, whether this holds true in obese subjects with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary disease (CTEPD) is unknown. Objective: Report on the iCPET findings of patients with CTEPH and CTEPD and investigate the relationship between obesity and gas exchange parameters, especially V_E/VCO₂ in these patients. Methods: Retrospective analysis of CTEPH and CTEPD patients undergoing iCPET. Results: We studied 60 patients; 34 (56.7%) had CTEPH and 26 (43.3%) had CTEPD. The mean age was 61.2 ± 14 years and the mean BMI was 31.8 ± 8.3 mg/kg². A higher V_E/VCO₂ (41.9 ± 10.2 vs. 36.8 ± 8.9; p = 0.045) was observed in CTEPH vs. CTEPD. There was an inverse relationship between the V_E/VCO₂ slope and BMI. For an increase of 1 point in BMI, the V_E/VCO₂ slope fell by 0.6 in CTEPD and 0.35 in CTEPH (p < 0.001). The mean V_E/VCO₂ slope in CTEPH and CTEPD groups was 48.6 ± 10.4 in BMI < 25 and 31.3 ± 6.5 in BMI > 35 (p < 0.001). The lower V_E/VCO₂ slope in obesity relates to an increased VCO₂/work rate relationship; there was no difference in the V_E/work relationship. Conclusions: The V_E/VCO₂ slope is markedly reduced by obesity, independent of the level of pulmonary vascular obstruction in CTEPH or CTEPD. Thus, obesity masks key physiologic evidence of pulmonary vascular obstruction on the gas exchange assessment of obese individuals.