Impact of Intravascular Ultrasound-Guided Percutaneous Coronary Intervention on Long-Term Clinical Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Complex Procedures

Abstract

Objectives: This study sought to determine whether intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) guidance compared with angiographic guidance reduces long-term risk of cardiac death in patients undergoing complex percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Background: Although IVUS is a useful tool for accurate assessment of lesion profiles and optimal stent implantation, there are limited data on long-term clinical outcomes between IVUS-guided and angiography-guided PCI for patients with complex lesions.

Methods: From March 2003 through December 2015, a total of 6,005 patients undergoing PCI for complex lesions with drug-eluting stents were enrolled from a prospective institutional registry. All enrolled subjects had at least 1 complex lesion (defined as bifurcation, chronic total occlusion, left main disease, long lesion, multivessel PCI, multiple stent implantation, in-stent restenosis, or heavily calcified lesion). Patients were classified according to use of IVUS or not. Multiple sensitivity analyses, including multivariable adjustment, propensity-score matching, and inverse-probability-weighted method, were performed to adjust baseline differences.

Results: Among the study population, IVUS was used in 1,674 patients (27.9%) during complex PCI. The IVUS-guided PCI group had a significantly larger mean stent diameter (3.2 ± 0.4 vs. 3.0 ± 0.4; p < 0.001), and more frequent use of post-dilatation (49.0% vs. 17.9%; p < 0.001) compared with the angiography-guided PCI group. IVUS-guided PCI was associated with a significantly lower risk of cardiac death during 64 months of median follow-up compared with angiography-guided PCI (10.2% vs. 16.9%; hazard ratio: 0.573; 95% confidence interval: 0.460 to 0.714; p < 0.001). Results were consistent after multivariable regression, propensity-score matching, and inverse-probability-weighted method. The risks of all-cause death, myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis, ischemia-driven target lesion revascularization, and major adverse cardiac events were also significantly lower in the IVUS-guided PCI group.

Conclusions: Among patients with complex coronary artery lesion, IVUS-guided PCI was associated with the lower long-term risk of cardiac death and adverse cardiac events compared with angiography-guided PCI. Use of IVUS should be actively considered for complex PCI.

Keywords: angiography; complex lesion; intravascular ultrasound; outcomes; percutaneous coronary intervention.