title: Retrograde crossing for chronic total occlusion lesions: the Japanese way.
abstract: Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for chronic total occlusion (CTO) lesions remains one of the major challenges in the field of interventional cardiology. Crossing guidewires through the CTO lesions has been conventionally performed from the proximal arteries to the lesions as an antegrade approach. To date, a retrograde approach, to penetrate PCI devices including guidewires and balloons into the distal end of CTO lesions via collateral vessels or coronary artery bypass grafts, has been attempted in order to achieve procedural success. With introduction of the retrograde approach for treatments of CTO lesions, several kinds of devices, techniques, and strategies have been developed. Although the techniques and strategies for the retrograde approach have not been worldwide accepted to interventional cardiologists, we introduce a way to obtain recanalization of the CTO lesions using the retrograde approach in this article.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan. takanom@nms.ac.jp
authors.forename: Masamichi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takano
authors.forename: Kyoichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mizuno
mesh_terms: D015906:Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary / Q000379:methods*; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan