PSEUDO-NARROWING DURING RIGHT CORONARY ANGIOPLASTY - HOW TO DIAGNOSE CORRECTLY WITHOUT WITHDRAWING THE GUIDEWIRE

The straightening of a sinuous proximal segment of a coronary artery u sing the stiffness of the guidewire has recently been recognized as li kely to cause false coronary lesions. The accurate diagnosis between a true dissection and a pseudo-lesion is usually only done once all int ra-coronary material has been removed into the guiding catheter. Such a manoeuvre may prove dangerous in case of dissection. We propose to d emonstrate that it is possible to diagnose this phenomenon while leavi ng the guidewire within the coronary artery, and withdrawing it progre ssively until its floppy segment rests equally on either side of the s uspect lesion. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.