A new edition of EuroPCR has come and gone. Now is the time to make a balance and review the main presentations at one of the most important European congresses on cardiovascular interventions. Thus, we have selected the six most relevant studies presented at the event. In our opinion, you cannot afford to miss them!...
Since the publication of the original SYNTAX trial, there have been great technical advancements that have influenced the results of angioplasty: New tools for risk stratification using the SYNTAX II score which integrate clinical and anatomical variables to the team’s decision-making process. Functional revascularization (hybrid use of fractional flow reserve or instantaneous wave-free ratio). Optimization of...
Recent studies in patients undergoing acute myocardial infarction showed that a complete revascularization strategy in an acute or subacute setting, whether it be guided through angiography (PRAMI, CvLPRIT) or fractional flow reserve (FFR) (PRIMULTI, COMPARE-ACUTE), improves the combined endpoint of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) when compared with treatment of the culprit artery only. Based...
Pooled data from the most important recently published studies (FAME 2, Compare-Acute, and DANAMI3-PRIMULTI) conclude that there is a significant difference in favor of fractional flow reserve (FFR) as regards hard endpoints. Coronary revascularization guided by FFR reduces the risk of death and infarction when compared with optimal medical treatment in patients with stable and...
After a 5-year follow-up, and for the first time, functional assessment with fractional flow reserve (FFR) showed clear benefit for a hard endpoint: acute myocardial infarction. Use of FFR in patients with stable coronary artery disease so as to identify hemodynamically significant lesions in order to restrict angioplasty treatment to them has long-term benefits compared...
Invasive physiology tests used in the ORBITA trial could not predict which patients would benefit from angioplasty more than placebo (sham procedure) in terms of the trial’s primary endpoint, improvement in exercise time. These data were presented at EuroPCR 2018 and published simultaneously in Circulation. Results encourage debate over the importance of ischemia reduction with angioplasty...
In patients with left main or three-vessel coronary disease, heart team decisions on revascularization strategy (angioplasty or surgery) may be made based solely on noninvasive computerized tomography (CT) angiography, since there is great correlation between its results and those determined by conventional angiography. For the SYNTAX III REVOLUTION study, Dr. Serruys and his colleagues randomized...
Using instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR) to guide decisions on revascularization of intermediate lesions is cheaper than using fractional flow reserve (FFR). Based on costs from the DEFINE-FLAIR trial, researchers estimate the difference to be almost USD 1000. This should not be seen as good news for any given technology (iFR, in this case), but for physiologic...
Routine invasive physiology assessment at time of angiography reclassifies treatment strategies in a big number of patients with lesions in 2 or 3 vessels, according to the multicenter prospective study DEFINE REAL, recently published in JACC Cardiovascular Interventions. The information obtained by measuring fractional flow reserve (FFR) or instantaneous wave free ratio (iFR) made interventionists modify their original plans in...
1) The CULPRIT-SHOCK Study Is Finally Published in NEJM and It Is Bound to Change Guidelines During SOLACI’s coverage of the TCT 2017 Congress in Denver, Colorado, we already mentioned some of the outcomes of this study that has arrived to revolutionize clinical practice, given the differences between its results and those of the classic SHOCK trial, which has marked...