Coronary angiography is considered to be the gold standard in the morphological evaluation of coronary artery stenosis. The morphological assessment of the severity of a coronary lesion is very subjective. Thus, the invasive fractional flow reserve (FFR) measurement represents the current standard for estimation of the hemodynamic significance of coronary artery stenosis. The FFR-guided revascularization strategy was initially classified as a Class-IA-recommendation in the 2014 European Society of Cardiology/European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery guidelines on myocardial revascularization. Both the Deferral vs Performance of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention of Functionally Non-Significant Coronary Stenosis and Flow Reserve vs Angiography for Multivessel Evaluation studies showed no treatment advantage for hemodynamically insignificant stenoses. With the help of FFR (and targeted interventions), clinical results could be improved; however, the use in clinical practice is still limited due to the need of adenosine administration and a significant prolongation of the length of the procedure. Instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR®) is a new innovative approach for the determination of the hemodynamic significance of coronary stenosis, which can be obtained at rest without the use of vasodilators. Regarding the periprocedural complications as well as prognosis, iFR® showed non-inferiority to FFR in the SWEDEHEART and DEFINE-FLAIR trials. Furthermore, iFR®, enhanced by iFR®-pullback, provides the possibility to display the iFR®-change over the course of the vessel to create a hemodynamic map.
Keywords: Coronary angiography; Coronary revascularization; Coronary stenosis; Fractional flow reserve; Instantaneous wave-free ratio; Myocardial ischemia.