OBJECTIVEIt was suggested that coronary stent design and coating may affect stent performance and hence induce varying degrees of thrombogenesis and neointimal hyperplasia. The purpose of this study is to compare the 6-month follow-up results between old and new Multilink stents with the method of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging.

METHODSWe have performed old (n = 40) and new (n = 35) Multilink stent implantations on 75 patients with coronary artery disease. Coronary angiography was performed before, immediately after, and 6 months after the in-stent procedure respectively. Six-month follow-up IVUS imaging was performed and analyzed off-line.

RESULTSMinimal lumen cross sectional area (CSA) of new Multilink stents was significantly larger than that of old Multilink stents (P = 0.0053). Mean stent lumen area of new Multilink stents was significantly larger than that of old Multilink stents (P = 0.040). Similarly, minimal lumen diameter (MLD) of new Multilink stents was larger than that of old Multilink stents (P = 0.011). Old Multilink stents had a higher percentage of plaque area than new Multilink stents.

CONCLUSIONThe new Multilink stent is obviously superior to old Multilink stents, in particular, in the stent MLD and lumen CSA--major determinants of the restenosis.

Adult ; Aged ; Coronary Angiography ; Coronary Artery Disease ; diagnostic imaging ; surgery ; Coronary Restenosis ; prevention & control ; Coronary Vessels ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology ; Evaluation Studies as Topic ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Stents ; Ultrasonography, Interventional

New technologies to generate, store and retrieve medical and research data are inducing a rapid change in clinical and translational research and health care. Systems medicine is the interdisciplinary approach wherein physicians and clinical investigators team up with experts from biology, biostatistics, informatics, mathematics and computational modeling to develop methods to use new and stored data to the benefit of the patient. We here provide a critical assessment of the opportunities and challenges arising out of systems approaches in medicine and from this provide a definition of what systems medicine entails. Based on our analysis of current developments in medicine and healthcare and associated research needs, we emphasize the role of systems medicine as a multilevel and multidisciplinary methodological framework for informed data acquisition and interdisciplinary data analysis to extract previously inaccessible knowledge for the benefit of patients.

Emerging antibiotic resistance is a major global health threat. The analysis of nucleic acid sequences linked to susceptibility phenotypes facilitates the study of genetic antibiotic resistance determinants to inform molecular diagnostics and drug development. We collected genetic data (11,087 newly-sequenced whole genomes) and culture-based resistance profiles (10,991 out of the 11,087 isolates comprehensively tested against 22 antibiotics in total) of clinical isolates including 18 main species spanning a time period of 30 years. Species and drug specific resistance patterns were observed including increased resistance rates for Acinetobacter baumannii to carbapenems and for Escherichia coli to fluoroquinolones. Species-level pan-genomes were constructed to reflect the genetic repertoire of the respective species, including conserved essential genes and known resistance factors. Integrating phenotypes and genotypes through species-level pan-genomes allowed to infer gene-drug resistance associations using statistical testing. The isolate collection and the analysis results have been integrated into GEAR-base, a resource available for academic research use free of charge at https://gear-base.com.
Acinetobacter baumannii ; genetics ; isolation & purification ; Bacteria ; genetics ; isolation & purification ; Cell Culture Techniques ; methods ; Drug Resistance, Microbial ; genetics ; Escherichia coli ; genetics ; isolation & purification ; Genome, Bacterial ; Genotype ; Humans ; Internet ; Microbial Sensitivity Tests ; Phenotype ; Whole Genome Sequencing