Unraveling the mystique of CTO Interventions: Tips and techniques of using hardware to achieve success

Abstract

The scientific discourse of chronic total occlusions interventions is mired in a technical jargon so confusing that it prevents an average interventional cardiologist from pursuing this field so much so that it has become a domain of a few. This review attempts to simplify this vernacular and present it in a manner that this procedure comes within the scope of a mainstream interventionist.

Keywords

• Chronic total occlusion
• Percutaneous coronary intervention
• Gaia
• Sion blue
• Fielder
• Corsair
• Tornus
• CrossBoss
• Antegrade
• Retrograde
• STAR technique
• Collateral channel
• CART
• Reverse CART
• Externalization