Background: Clinical use of fractional flow reserve (FFR) has been rapidly increasing, but outcomes after FFR-based coronary intervention in Japanese daily clinical practice have not been well investigated.Methods and Results:The prospective multicenter cardiovascular intervention therapeutics registry (CVIT)-DEFER enrolled consecutive patients for whom FFR measurement was clinically indicated. This study comprised 3,857 vessels in 3,272 patients. Lesions were categorized into 4 groups according to FFR result and revascularization strategy: group 1: FFR >0.8, and deferral of PCI (n=1992); group 2: FFR >0.8, then PCI (n=230); group 3: FFR ≤0.8, and deferral of PCI (n=506); and group 4: FFR ≤0.8, then PCI (n=1,129). The event rate for deferred lesions was significantly low compared with that for PCI lesions (3.5% vs. 6.6%; P<0.05). Vessel-related events occurred in 62 (3.1%), 11 (4.8%), 25 (4.9%), and 79 (7.0%) patients in groups 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. PCI for lesions in which FFR was >0.8 (group 2) showed no improvement in the event rate compared with a defer-strategy. On the other hand, deferred lesions with lower FFR values had a higher risk of vessel-related events.
Conclusions: A FFR-based revascularization strategy in daily clinical practice was safe with regard to vessel-related events.
Keywords: Fractional flow reserve; Japanese Association of Cardiovascular Intervention Therapeutics (CVIT); Percutaneous coronary intervention.