Head-to-head comparison of two angiography-derived fractional flow reserve techniques in patients with high-risk acute coronary syndrome: A multicenter prospective study

Abstract

Background: FFRangio and QFR are angiography-based technologies that have been validated in patients with stable coronary artery disease. No head-to-head comparison to invasive fractional flow reserve (FFR) has been reported to date in patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS).

Methods: This study is a subset of a larger prospective multicenter, single-arm study that involved patients diagnosed with high-risk ACS in whom 30-70% stenosis was evaluated by FFR. FFRangio and QFR - both calculated offline by 2 different and blinded operators - were calculated and compared to FFR. The two co-primary endpoints were the comparison of the Pearson correlation coefficient between FFRangio and QFR with FFR and the comparison of their inter-observer variability.

Results: Among 134 high-risk ACS screened patients, 59 patients with 84 vessels underwent FFR measurements and were included in this study. The mean FFR value was 0.82 ± 0.40 with 32 (38%) being ≤0.80. The mean FFRangio was 0.82 ± 0.20 and the mean QFR was 0.82 ± 0.30, with 27 (32%) and 25 (29%) being ≤0.80, respectively. The Pearson correlation coefficient was significantly better for FFRangio compared to QFR, with R values of 0.76 and 0.61, respectively (p = 0.01). The inter-observer agreement was also significantly better for FFRangio compared to QFR (0.86 vs 0.79, p < 0.05). FFRangio had 91% sensitivity, 100% specificity, and 96.8% accuracy, while QFR exhibited 86.4% sensitivity, 98.4% specificity, and 93.7% accuracy.

Conclusion: In patients with high-risk ACS, FFRangio and QFR demonstrated excellent diagnostic performance. FFRangio seems to have better correlation to invasive FFR compared to QFR but further larger validation studies are required.

Keywords: ACS; FFR; FFRangio; HIGH-RISK ACS; QFR.