Percutaneous Treatment of Left Main Coronary Artery Stenoses

A s the oxigenization and nutrition of large parts of themyocardium depend on the left main coronary artery (LM), a significant stenosis of the LM has major impacts on the function of the heart. The prevalences of LM stenosis in patients undergoing coronary angiography range from 2.5 to 10 %; additionally, nearly all patients suffer from a concomitant atherosclerotic disease of other coronary branches [1, 2]. In contrast, an isolated atherosclerotic lesion of the LM is very rare, with reported incidences of 0.15 and 0.07 % (of all angiographed patients), respectively [3–5]. In the Catheteri-zation Laboratories of the University of Vienna Medical Center, Austria, significant stenoses of the LM were diag-nosed in 4.7 % of patients undergoing coronary angiography in the time between January 1998 and April 2001. Exact angiographic detection of LM stenosis sometimes poses problems: Hermiller et al. demonstrated that unrecog