Applied Pathology for Interventions of Coronary Chronic Total Occlusion

Percutaneous coronary intervention of chronically occluded vessels can result in significant improvement in symptoms, relieve myocardial ischemia, and affect a reduction in major adverse cardiac events. Likelihood of achieving successful revascularization can be significantly enhanced with a thorough understanding of the pathology of these occluded coronary arteries. In this chapter, various steps and techniques to cross the CTO lesion and recanalize it are discussed in details.