Association between tissue characteristics assessed with optical coherence tomography and mid-term results after percutaneous coronary intervention for in-stent restenosis lesions: a comparison between balloon angioplasty, paclitaxel-coated balloon dilatation, and drug-eluting stent implantation.

AIMS Morphological assessment of neointimal tissue using optical coherence tomography (OCT) is important for clarifying the pathophysiology of in-stent restenosis (ISR) lesions. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of OCT findings on recurrence of ISR after various types of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) including plain old balloon angioplasty (POBA), paclitaxel-coated balloon (PCB) dilatation, and drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. METHODS AND RESULTS Between June 2008 and August 2013, we performed PCI for 428 ISR lesions in 379 patients using POBA (78 lesions, POBA group), PCB dilatation (202 lesions, PCB group), and DES implantation (148 lesions, DES group). Morphological assessment of neointimal tissue at the minimum lumen area site to determine restenotic tissue structure (homogeneous, heterogeneous, or layered type) using OCT was performed. We examined the association between tissue structure and midterm results including ISR and target lesion revascularization (TLR) rates. The patients were 308 men and 71 women with a mean age of 68.9 ± 9.4 years. The mean follow-up period was 211 ± 40 days. ISR and TLR rates of lesions with a homogeneous structure were significantly higher in the POBA group than in the PCB group (ISR: 54.8 vs. 19.1%, P < 0.001; TLR: 38.7 vs. 10.6%, P < 0.001) and DES group (ISR: 54.8 vs. 19.6%, P = 0.002; TLR: 38.7 vs. 10.7%, P = 0.005), whereas there were no differences in ISR and TLR rates between the three groups in lesions with a heterogeneous structure. CONCLUSION Morphological assessment of ISR tissue using OCT might suggest favourable types of PCI for ISR lesions.