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Objective: Major limitation for the use of stent in the treatment of coronary artery disease is development of stent restenosis. The impact of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) guidance during drug eluting stent (DES) implantation is presently not yet well established., Patients and Methods: For the present study, we included 30 patients who received DES with IVUS-guided stenting (Group A) and 30 patients receiving the DES without IVUS-guided stenting (Group B). The patients were evaluated for their ninth month control angiographies and were followed during two years for the development of relevant clinical events after the DES implantations. The angiographic and clinical results were compared between the groups., Results: After the percutaneous intervention, the minimal luminal diameter and net acute gain were significantly increased in Group A in respect to Group B (3.3 ± 0.34 vs. 2.8 ± 0.33, p < 0.01). Moreover, the rate for performing post-dilatation following stent implantation was higher in Group A than in Group B (p = 0.01). By contrast, stent restenosis rates were similar between the groups (p > 0.3)., Conclusions: The present results indicate that the use of IVUS for the implantation of DES can increase the success rate of the intervention. The IVUS guidance during DES implantation can be complementary percutaneous intervention, in particularly by detecting the situations that need for post-dilatation.

Objectives: The frequency of hypoplastic right coronary artery (HRCA) and its contribution to coronary artery anomalies (CAAs) has not been thoroughly studied. Here we aimed to investigate whether a casual relationship exists between the presence of HRCA and CAAs., Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed coronary angiography records of 7500 patients. The images were carefully assessed for coronary artery (CA) anatomy and CAAs. Overall, we compared CAAs at the presence and absence of HRCA and evaluated potential association between HRCA and CAAs. Besides, we grouped HRCA patients according to the presence of CA disease (CAD) into two groups and compared their CAAs., Results: While the percentage of HRCA was 6.2%, it was 3.34% for CAAs. The percentage of CA with anomalous origin (CAAO) at the presence of HRCA was significantly higher than the presence of normal right coronary artery (NRCA) (p < 0.01). Similarly, the percentage of absent left main coronary artery (ALMCA) was also considerable increased in HRCA patients with respect to the patients with NRCA (p < 0.01). The percentage of CAAO was notably higher in the CAD (-) than CAD (+) patients with HRCA (p < 0.01). Likewise, the prevalence of ALMCA was also noticeably higher in the CAD (-) than CAD (+) patients with HRCA (p < 0.01)., Conclusions: HRCA is a clinically significant and frequently encountered congenital variation. The present observations indicate that the presence of HRCA is closely associated with a high prevalence of CAAO, particularly with increased rate of ALMCA.