The management of patients committed to long-term oral anticoagulation, such as those with atrial fibrillation at moderate to high risk of stroke, mechanical heart valves, and previous arterial/venous thromboembolism, who are submitted to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has become an issue of increasing importance in the last years. Guidelines/expert consensus papers addressing the complex management of this population, which is estimated to represent about 5 to 10% of all patients referred for PCI, have been recently made available. As underlined in the most recent guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation issued by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) however, "guidelines are no substitutes for textbooks." This pocketbook addresses the key management points and summarizes the properties of the stents and the clinical pharmacology of the antithrombotic agents to be used in these patients. It will be a useful guide for clinical and interventional cardiologists, internists, surgeons, primary care doctors, and other physicians who care for these patients.

Minimal invasive endovascular treatment of peripheral arteries is one of the most rapidly evolving techniques in interventional therapies. Advanced technologies enable treatment of more complex lesions in severely diseased patients. Increasing evidence suggests that particularly in high risk patients endovascular solutions offer substantial advantages compared to vascular surgical procedures. Nevertheless, growing numbers of procedures are associated with an increased incidence of complications. Knowledge of specific complications in different vessel areas will support the interventionist in preventing such adverse events and if necessary provide considerable reassurance if such complications need to be resolved. The present book aims to systematically cover specific complications in peripheral vascular interventions. Typical and atypical complications are described for all peripheral vessel areas and methods how to handle these events are outlined. The book is divided in two parts: Part I reviews general aspects on complications in peripheral interventions, Part II covers the specific vessel areas. frequency and kind of complications in this vessel area; factors identifying high risk patients for these complications; complications of specific interventional steps and complications for specific interventional tools; endovascular techniques to resolve these complications; methods to avoid these complications; a summary; and, a check list for an emergency equipment for interventions in this specific vessel area. The book intends to focus on practical tips for the interventionist in the cath-lab, to review complicated cases and outline different strategies in real-life cases, thus to share the experience of high-volume interventionists with the reader.