Coronary physiology – the news from the last year

Abstract

The myocardial blood supply changes, leading to myocardial ischemia deserve deep understanding. They could be on different levels: epicardial arteries, microcirculation or both. Along with the anatomical findings, the functional assessment of coronary vessels is a key moment in making the decision for the type of treatment and the need for coronary revascularization. Together with the established methods for functional assessment of coronary circulation, new technologies nowadays have been applied in the clinical practice. The trends for future development are methods not using myocardial hyperemia, an attempt for functional assessment on the basis of invasive on noninvasive imaging technics and stronger attention to the microcirculatory dysfunction. The new achievements in that direction are on the focus of the current review.