Aims Catheter-based renal nerve ablation (RNA) using radiofrequency energy is a novel treatment for drug-resistant essential hypertension. However, the local endothelial and vascular injury induced by RNA has not been characterized, although this importantly determines the long-term safety of the procedure. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) enables in vivo visualization of morphologic features with a high resolution of 10–15 µm. The objective of this study was to assess the morphological features of the endothelial and vascular injury induced by RNA using OCT. Methods and results In a prospective observational study, 32 renal arteries of patients with treatment-resistant hypertension underwent OCT ...

A 37-year-old male was admitted with a non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction. Coronary angiography and optical coherence tomography (OCT) revealed a 70% stenosis of the ostial left artery descending (LAD) with little thrombotic material but without obvious signs for rupture/dissection ( Panels A and B , Supplementary material online, Video S1 ). After direct stenting with a biolimus-eluting stent (BES, 3.5 × 18 mm, 10 atmospheres), OCT revealed suboptimal strut apposition with

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a novel high-resolution intravascular imaging technique allowing characterization of coronary artery plaques and evaluation of stent strut coverage. As a new application, OCT can be also used in allograft vasculopathy as demonstrated by the following images. Comparison of OCT and coronary angiography...

A 52-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital with a 2-day history of nausea and dizziness and a subsequent pre-syncope. Because of a known bipolar disorder, an emergency psychiatric evaluation was performed and an attempted suicide as suggested by relatives was considered unlikely. Subsequently, an increased troponin T level was observed (0.101 µg/l) and coronary angiography was performed. Coronary angiography revealed a highly variable degree of stenosis of the middle right coronary artery (A and B, arrows) that was unresponsive to intracoronary nitrate administration. Notably, when there was a high degree of stenosis cardiac arrhythmias, in particular sinus ...