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Previous meta-analyses have shown reduced risks of composite adverse events with intravascular imaging-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with angiography guidance alone. However, these studies have been insufficiently powered to show whether all-cause death or all myocardial infarction are reduced with intravascular imaging guidance, and most previous intravascular imaging studies were done with intravascular ultrasound rather than optical coherence tomography (OCT), a newer imaging modality. We aimed to assess the comparative performance of intravascular imaging-guided PCI and angiography-guided PCI with drug-eluting stents. For this systematic review and updated meta-analysis, we searched the MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane databases from inception to Aug 30, 2023, for studies that randomly assigned patients undergoing PCI with drug-eluting stents either to intravascular ultrasound or OCT, or both, or to angiography alone to guide the intervention. The searches were done and study-level data were extracted independently by two investigators. The primary endpoint was target lesion failure, defined as the composite of cardiac death, target vessel-myocardial infarction (TV-MI), or target lesion revascularisation, assessed in patients randomly assigned to intravascular imaging guidance (intravascular ultrasound or OCT) versus angiography guidance. We did a standard frequentist meta-analysis to generate direct data, and a network meta-analysis to generate indirect data and overall treatment effects. Outcomes were expressed as relative risks (RRs) with 95% CIs at the longest reported follow-up duration. This study was registered with the international prospective register of systematic reviews (PROSPERO, number CRD42023455662). 22 trials were identified in which 15 964 patients were randomised and followed for a weighted mean duration of 24·7 months (longest duration of follow-up in each study ranging from 6 to 60 months). Compared with angiography-guided PCI, intravascular imaging-guided PCI resulted in a decreased risk of target lesion failure (RR 0·71 [95% CI 0·63–0·80]; p<0·0001), driven by reductions in the risks of cardiac death (RR 0·55 [95% CI 0·41–0·75]; p=0·0001), TV-MI (RR 0·82 [95% CI 0·68–0·98]; p=0·030), and target lesion revascularisation (RR 0·72 [95% CI 0·60–0·86]; p=0·0002). Intravascular imaging guidance also reduced the risks of stent thrombosis (RR 0·52 [95% CI 0·34–0·81]; p=0·0036), all myocardial infarction (RR 0·83 [95% CI 0·71–0·99]; p=0·033), and all-cause death (RR 0·75 [95% CI 0·60–0·93]; p=0·0091). Outcomes were similar for OCT-guided and intravascular ultrasound-guided PCI. Compared with angiography guidance, intravascular imaging guidance of coronary stent implantation with OCT or intravascular ultrasound enhances both the safety and effectiveness of PCI, reducing the risks of death, myocardial infarction, repeat revascularisation, and stent thrombosis. Abbott.

Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) with aspirin plus a P2Y12 inhibitor prevents ischaemic events after coronary stenting, but increases bleeding. Guidelines support weighting bleeding risk before the selection of treatment duration, but no standardised tool exists for this purpose. A total of 14 963 patients treated with DAPT after coronary stenting—largely consisting of aspirin and clopidogrel and without indication to oral anticoagulation—were pooled at a single-patient level from eight multicentre randomised clinical trials with independent adjudication of events. Using Cox proportional hazards regression, we identified predictors of out-of-hospital Thrombosis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) major or minor bleeding stratified by trial, and developed a numerical bleeding risk score. The predictive performance of the novel score was assessed in the derivation cohort and validated in patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention from the PLATelet inhibition and patient Outcomes (PLATO) trial (n=8595) and BernPCI registry (n=6172). The novel score was assessed within patients randomised to different DAPT durations (n=10 081) to identify the effect on bleeding and ischaemia of a long (12–24 months) or short (3–6 months) treatment in relation to baseline bleeding risk. The PRECISE-DAPT score (age, creatinine clearance, haemoglobin, white-blood-cell count, and previous spontaneous bleeding) showed a c-index for out-of-hospital TIMI major or minor bleeding of 0·73 (95% CI 0·61–0·85) in the derivation cohort, and 0·70 (0·65–0·74) in the PLATO trial validation cohort and 0·66 (0·61–0·71) in the BernPCI registry validation cohort. A longer DAPT duration significantly increased bleeding in patients at high risk (score ≥25), but not in those with lower risk profiles (pinteraction=0·007), and exerted a significant ischaemic benefit only in this latter group. The PRECISE-DAPT score is a simple five-item risk score, which provides a standardised tool for the prediction of out-of-hospital bleeding during DAPT. In the context of a comprehensive clinical evaluation process, this tool can support clinical decision making for treatment duration. None.

Understanding the natural history of coronary artery atherosclerosis is necessary to determine prognosis and prescribe effective therapies. Traditional management of coronary artery disease has focused on the treatment of flow-limiting anatomical obstructions that lead to ischaemia. In most scenarios, revascularization of these atherosclerotic plaques has not substantially improved freedom from death or myocardial infarction, questioning the utility of contemporary revascularization strategies to improve prognosis. Advances in non-invasive and invasive imaging techniques have helped to identify the characteristics of obstructive and non-obstructive plaques that are precursors for plaque progression and future acute coronary syndromes as well as cardiac death. These ‘vulnerable plaques’ develop as a consequence of systemic inflammation and are prone to inducing thrombosis. Vulnerable plaques most commonly have a large plaque burden with a well-formed necrotic core and thin fibrous cap and are metabolically active. Perivascular adipose tissue might, in some patients, be used as a surrogate for coronary inflammation and predict future risk of adverse cardiac events. Vulnerable plaques can be identified in their quiescent state, offering the potential for therapeutic passivation. In this Review, we describe the biological and compositional features of vulnerable plaques, the non-invasive and invasive diagnostic modalities to characterize vulnerable plaques, the prognostic utility of identifying vulnerable plaques, and the future studies needed to explore the value of intensified pharmacological and focal treatments of vulnerable plaques.In this Review, the authors describe the features of coronary artery vulnerable plaques as well as non-invasive and invasive diagnostic modalities that can be used to characterize them. They also discuss the prognostic utility of identifying vulnerable plaques and the best current approaches to manage these lesions, and highlight evidence gaps and future directions.

In a randomized trial, optical coherence tomography–guided PCI resulted in a larger minimum stent area than angiography-guided PCI, but there was no between-group difference in target-vessel failure at 2 years.

Transcatheter repair of secondary mitral regurgitation was associated with a lower rate of hospitalization for heart failure and lower all-cause mortality than medical therapy at 5 years of follow-up.

The relation between platelet reactivity and stent thrombosis, major bleeding, and other adverse events after coronary artery implantation of drug-eluting stents has been incompletely characterised. We aimed to determine the relation between platelet reactivity during dual therapy with aspirin and clopidogrel and clinical outcomes after successful coronary drug-eluting stent implantation. ADAPT-DES was a prospective, multicentre registry of patients successfully treated with one or more drug-eluting stents and given aspirin and clopidogrel at 10–15 US and European hospitals. We assessed platelet reactivity in those patients after successful percutaneous coronary intervention using VerifyNow point-of-care assays, and assigned different cutoffs to define high platelet reactivity. The primary endpoint was definite or probable stent thrombosis; other endpoints were all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, and clinically relevant bleeding. We did a propensity-adjusted multivariable analysis to determine the relation between platelet reactivity and subsequent adverse events. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00638794. Between Jan 7, 2008, and Sept 16, 2010, 8665 patients were prospectively enrolled at 11 sites, of which 8583 were eligible. At 1-year follow-up, stent thrombosis had occurred in 70 (0·8%) patients, myocardial infarction in 269 (3·1%), clinically relevant bleeding in 531 (6·2%), and death in 161 (1·9%) patients. High platelet reactivity on clopidogrel was strongly related to stent thrombosis (adjusted HR 2·49 [95% CI 1·43–4·31], p=0·001) and myocardial infarction (adjusted HR 1·42 [1·09–1·86], p=0·01), was inversely related to bleeding (adjusted HR 0·73 [0·61–0·89], p=0·002), but was not related to mortality (adjusted HR 1·20 [0·85–1·70], p=0·30). High platelet reactivity on aspirin was not significantly associated with stent thrombosis (adjusted HR 1·46 [0·58–3·64], p=0·42), myocardial infarction, or death, but was inversely related to bleeding (adjusted HR 0·65 [0·43–0·99], p=0·04). The findings from this study emphasise the counter-balancing effects of haemorrhagic and ischaemic complications after stent implantation, and suggest that safer drugs or tailored strategies for the use of more potent agents must be developed if the benefits of greater platelet inhibition in patients with cardiovascular disease are to be realised. Boston Scientific, Abbott Vascular, Medtronic, Cordis, Biosensors, The Medicines Company, Daiichi-Sankyo, Eli Lilly, Volcano, and Accumetrics

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is most commonly guided by angiography alone. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) guidance has been shown to reduce major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) after PCI, principally by resulting in a larger postprocedure lumen than with angiographic guidance. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides higher resolution imaging than does IVUS, although findings from some studies suggest that it might lead to smaller luminal diameters after stent implantation. We sought to establish whether or not a novel OCT-based stent sizing strategy would result in a minimum stent area similar to or better than that achieved with IVUS guidance and better than that achieved with angiography guidance alone. In this randomised controlled trial, we recruited patients aged 18 years or older undergoing PCI from 29 hospitals in eight countries. Eligible patients had one or more target lesions located in a native coronary artery with a visually estimated reference vessel diameter of 2·25–3·50 mm and a length of less than 40 mm. We excluded patients with left main or ostial right coronary artery stenoses, bypass graft stenoses, chronic total occlusions, planned two-stent bifurcations, and in-stent restenosis. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1; with use of an interactive web-based system in block sizes of three, stratified by site) to OCT guidance, IVUS guidance, or angiography-guided stent implantation. We did OCT-guided PCI using a specific protocol to establish stent length, diameter, and expansion according to reference segment external elastic lamina measurements. All patients underwent final OCT imaging (operators in the IVUS and angiography groups were masked to the OCT images). The primary efficacy endpoint was post-PCI minimum stent area, measured by OCT at a masked independent core laboratory at completion of enrolment, in all randomly allocated participants who had primary outcome data. The primary safety endpoint was procedural MACE. We tested non-inferiority of OCT guidance to IVUS guidance (with a non-inferiority margin of 1·0 mm2), superiority of OCT guidance to angiography guidance, and superiority of OCT guidance to IVUS guidance, in a hierarchical manner. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02471586. Between May 13, 2015, and April 5, 2016, we randomly allocated 450 patients (158 [35%] to OCT, 146 [32%] to IVUS, and 146 [32%] to angiography), with 415 final OCT acquisitions analysed for the primary endpoint (140 [34%] in the OCT group, 135 [33%] in the IVUS group, and 140 [34%] in the angiography group). The final median minimum stent area was 5·79 mm2 (IQR 4·54–7·34) with OCT guidance, 5·89 mm2 (4·67–7·80) with IVUS guidance, and 5·49 mm2 (4·39–6·59) with angiography guidance. OCT guidance was non-inferior to IVUS guidance (one-sided 97·5% lower CI −0·70 mm2; p=0·001), but not superior (p=0·42). OCT guidance was also not superior to angiography guidance (p=0·12). We noted procedural MACE in four (3%) of 158 patients in the OCT group, one (1%) of 146 in the IVUS group, and one (1%) of 146 in the angiography group (OCT vs IVUS p=0·37; OCT vs angiography p=0·37). OCT-guided PCI using a specific reference segment external elastic lamina-based stent optimisation strategy was safe and resulted in similar minimum stent area to that of IVUS-guided PCI. These data warrant a large-scale randomised trial to establish whether or not OCT guidance results in superior clinical outcomes to angiography guidance. St Jude Medical.

The relative outcomes of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)–guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with angiography-guided PCI with drug-eluting stent (DES) in complex lesions have not been established. We sought to compare the efficacy and safety of IVUS-guided PCI with angiography-guided PCI in patients with complex coronary lesions treated with DES. Electronic databases were searched to identify all randomized trials comparing IVUS-guided vs angiography-guided DES implantation. We evaluated major adverse cardiac events (MACE), all-cause and cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, target lesion revascularization (TLR), target vessel revascularization (TVR), and stent thrombosis outcomes at the longest reported follow-up. Random-effects modeling was used to calculate pooled relative risk (RR) and 95% CIs. Eight trials comprising 3,276 patients (1,635 IVUS-guided and 1,641 angiography-guided) enrolling only patients with complex lesions were included. Mean follow-up was 1.4±0.5years. Compared with angiography-guided PCI, patients undergoing IVUS-guided PCI had significantly lower MACE (RR 0.64, 95% CI 0.51-0.80, P=.0001), TLR (RR 0.62, 95% CI 0.45-0.86, P=.004), and TVR (RR 0.60, 95% CI 0.42-0.87, P=.007). There were no significant differences for stent thrombosis, cardiovascular death, or all-cause death. In meta-regression analysis, IVUS-guided PCI was of greatest benefit in reducing MACE in patients with acute coronary syndromes, diabetes, and long lesions. The present meta-analysis demonstrates a significant reduction in MACE, TVR, and TLR with IVUS-guided DES implantation in complex coronary lesions.

Cangrelor is a potent, rapid-acting, reversible intravenous platelet inhibitor that was tested for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in three large, double-blind, randomised trials. We did a pooled analysis of data from three trials that assessed the effectiveness of cangrelor against either clopidogrel or placebo in PCI. This prespecified, pooled analysis of patient-level data from three trials (CHAMPION-PCI, CHAMPION-PLATFORM, and CHAMPION-PHOENIX) compared cangrelor with control (clopidogrel or placebo) for prevention of thrombotic complications during and after PCI. Trial participants were patients undergoing PCI for ST-elevation myocardial infarction (11·6%), non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndromes (57·4%), and stable coronary artery disease (31·0%). Efficacy was assessed in the modified intention-to-treat population of 24 910 patients, with a prespecified primary efficacy composite of death, myocardial infarction, ischaemia-driven revascularisation, or stent thrombosis at 48 h. The primary safety outcome was non-coronary artery bypass graft-related GUSTO (Global Use of Strategies to Open Occluded Coronary Arteries) severe or life-threatening bleeding at 48 h. Cangrelor reduced the odds of the primary outcome by 19% (3·8% for cangrelor vs 4·7% for control; odds ratio [OR] 0·81, 95% CI 0·71–0·91, p=0·0007), and stent thrombosis by 41% (0·5% vs 0·8%, OR 0·59, 95% CI 0·43–0·80, p=0·0008). Cangrelor reduced the odds of the secondary triple composite (all-cause death, myocardial infarction, or ischaemia-driven revascularisation at 48 h) by 19% (3·6% vs 4·4%, OR 0·81, 95% CI 0·71–0·92, p=0·0014). Efficacy outcomes were consistent across the trials and main patient subsets. These benefits were maintained at 30 days. There was no difference in the primary safety outcome (0·2% in both groups), in GUSTO moderate bleeding (0·6% vs 0·4%), or in transfusion (0·7% vs 0·6%), but cangrelor increased GUSTO mild bleeding (16·8% vs 13·0%, p<0·0001). Compared with control (clopidogrel or placebo), cangrelor reduced PCI periprocedural thrombotic complications, at the expense of increased bleeding. The Medicines Company.

Compared with metallic drug-eluting stents, bioresorbable vascular scaffolds (BVS) offer the potential to improve long-term outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention. Whether or not these devices are as safe and effective as drug-eluting stents within the first year after implantation is unknown. We did a patient-level, pooled meta-analysis of four randomised trials in which 3389 patients with stable coronary artery disease or a stabilised acute coronary syndrome were enrolled at 301 academic and medical centres in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. These patients were randomly assigned to the everolimus-eluting Absorb BVS (n=2164) or the Xience cobalt-chromium everolimus-eluting stent (CoCr-EES; n=1225). The primary endpoints were the 1-year relative rates of the patient-oriented composite endpoint (all-cause mortality, all myocardial infarction, or all revascularisation) and the device-oriented composite endpoint of target lesion failure (cardiac mortality, target vessel-related myocardial infarction, or ischaemia-driven target lesion revascularisation). All analyses were by intention to treat. The four randomised trials included in our meta-analysis are all registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, numbers NCT01751906, NCT01844284, NCT01923740, and NCT01425281. The summary treatment effect for the 1-year relative rates of the patient-oriented composite endpoint did not differ significantly different between BVS and CoCr-EES (relative risk [RR] 1·09 [0·89–1·34], p=0·38). Similarly, the 1-year relative rates of the device-oriented composite endpoint did not differ between the groups (RR 1·22 [95% CI 0·91–1·64], p=0·17). Target vessel-related myocardial infarction was increased with BVS compared with CoCr-EES (RR 1·45 [95% CI 1·02–2·07], p=0·04), due in part to non-significant increases in peri-procedural myocardial infarction and device thrombosis with BVS (RR 2·09 [0·92–4·75], p=0·08). The relative rates of all-cause and cardiac mortality, all myocardial infarction, ischaemia-driven target lesion revascularisation, and all revascularisation did not differ between BVS and CoCr-EES. Results were similar after multivariable adjustment for baseline imbalances, and were consistent across most subgroups and in sensitivity analysis when two additional randomised trials with less than 1 year of follow-up were included. In this meta-analysis, BVS did not lead to different rates of composite patient-oriented and device-oriented adverse events at 1-year follow-up compared with CoCr-EES. Abbott Vascular.