Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) guidance bests angiography guidance during the implantation of drug-eluting stents, according to a study published online September 24 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and presented at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium in San Diego.
The study included 1,448 patients from eight centers in China who underwent drug-eluting stent implantation between August 2014 and May 2017. Patients were divided evenly into IVUS guidance and angiography guidance groups. A team led by Dr. Junjie Zhang of Nanjing Medical University used target vessel failure at 12 months after either procedure as the study's primary outcome measure.
At 12 months of follow-up, 60 (4.2%) target vessel failures occurred; 21 (2.9%) of these were in the IVUS group and 39 (5.4%) were in the angiography group. These findings suggest that IVUS-guided stent implantation improves clinical outcomes compared to angiography guidance, Zhang and colleagues wrote.
In related research also presented at the conference, a group led by Dr. Ron Waksman of MedStar Heart Institute in Washington, DC, studied 1,563 patients with suspected coronary artery disease who underwent cardiac catheterization with percutaneous coronary intervention between February 2014 and March 2016. The investigators found that intravascular near-infrared spectroscopy-intravascular ultrasound imaging identified plaques associated with the development of a major cardiac event such as a heart attack.
"Multivessel near-infrared spectroscopy can be easily and safely performed to assess and identify vulnerable patients and vulnerable plaques," Waksman said in a statement released by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, which sponsors the conference.
