Introduction

Guidewires are a fundamental component of any cardiac and vascular interventional procedure. These interventions may include coronary angioplasty, carotid stenting, endovascular aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR), superficial femoral artery (SFA) stenting, and inferior vena cava (IVC) filter placement. Numerous options exist for the guidewire available to interventionalists and surgeons. These guidewires vary in design and physical properties, and thus are not identical in their capabilities. While there have been evaluations of individual guidewires,^1–9

The popliteal artery aneurysm is the most common peripheral aneurysm, accounting for 70–80%. It is found mainly in male patients,^10-12 with 50% of all cases being bilateral.¹³ The pathogenesis is often atherosclerotic, however, generalized dilatation and elongation of other arteries, such as the abdominal aorta, suggest a systemic abnormality.¹⁴ Mechanical stresses like hypertension, which is present in many patients^15,16 and the fixation of the vessel at the adductor hiatus can contribute to aneurysm formation in the popliteal artery. Non-

Introduction

The number of percutaneous revascularization procedures performed for symptomatic peripheral arterial disease (PAD) has significantly increased over the past several years.¹ Traditionally, the use of percutaneous techniques were limited to certain anatomic subsets, such as stenosis or focal occlusions, with surgical treatment preferred for more extensive disease.² More recently, endovascular specialists are facing the challenges of treating commonly- encountered peripheral chronic total occlusions (CTOs). Furthermore, unlike the co

The idea for this editorial emerged in my mind while reviewing the article “A Comparison of Interventional Guidewires in a Canine Model” by Huang et al. The authors set out to test three different wires in the setting of an in vivo experiment. They used some of the most common maneuvers interventionists perform with guidewires in the course of endovascular procedures. Not surprisingly, the study showed the superiority of the GlideWire. I thought it was reassuring — at least to me!

And now the rest of the story; and it’s all personal. As a vascular surgeon da