RT Book, Section A1 Jayasuriya, Sasanka A1 Pfau, Steven A2 Samady, Habib A2 Fearon, William F. A2 Yeung, Alan C. A2 King III, Spencer B. SR Print(0) ID 1146596535 T1 Antiplatelet Therapies in Contemporary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention T2 Interventional Cardiology, 2e YR 2017 FD 2017 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9780071820363 LK accesscardiology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1146596535 RD 2024/03/28 AB In 1979, Andreas Gruentzig reported his experience with the first 50 coronary angioplasty procedures. In those first 50 patients, antiplatelet therapy was empiric and consisted of 1.0 g of aspirin (approximately 65 mg) for 3 days and dextran during the procedure. In the 36 years since that publication, the scientific understanding of arterial thrombus formation in response to arterial injury and clinical experience with pharmacologic means to mitigate this process have grown by immeasurable proportions. Specifically, the understanding of surface receptors and ligands necessary for the transformation of platelets to their active state, as well as the surface proteins responsible for adherence to fibrin, leukocytes, and other platelets, has facilitated the development of therapies targeted to specific steps in the activation sequence. Clinical investigation and experience continually refine the circumstances under which specific therapies are best applied in order to maximize benefit and minimize risk. In contemporary coronary angioplasty, the interplay between arterial wall, platelets, plaque components, clinical presentation, stent design, stent components, and concomitant medications has resulted in a complex and fluid therapeutic algorithm for antiplatelet therapy before, during, and after percutaneous coronary interventions.