Future achievements in interventional cardiology will allow unmet goals to be reached, while new perspectives in cath-lab approaches are discovered.

Since the first percutaneous procedure in 1977, interventional cardiology has been the therapeutic modality that has advanced more rapidly than any other form of treatment in the field of cardiovascular diseases. With many advances and technology improvements, the initial indication to treat only patients with single vessel disease and good LV function has broadened in line with the increasing operator experience and development of new devices. In this way, interventional cardiology has gradually tackled more complex lesions, higher risk patient, and more extensive coronary disease.
Without doubt, the most important advance in the decade following the introduction of the stent and antithrombotic regimens has been the introduction of drug eluting stents. Today, besides the rapamycin and paclitaxel eluting stents, new stents are available on the market with different polymers (or without polymers) and different drugs. Absorbable stents are also in advanced stages of development and it will be possible to consider a combination of these technologies in the near future. These advances will not only apply to the treatment of coronary lesions, but also in the field of ventricular function. Myocardial regeneration using percutaneously injected stem cells, either by intracoronary...continua a leggere