Safety and feasibility of frequency domain optical coherence tomography to guide decision making in percutaneous coronary intervention.

AIMS The purpose of this single centre registry is to assess safety and feasibility of the frequency domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) system during coronary interventions. METHODS AND RESULTS Ninety patients with unstable or stable coronary artery disease were included in this study. OCT imaging was performed in a first group of 40 patients (group 1), to evaluate ambiguous/intermediate lesions (24 patients in group 1 had OCT also done post-PCI, for assessment of stent deployment); and in a second group of 50 patients (group 2), to address the adequacy of stent deployment. Therefore, 74 patients underwent FD-OCT after stent implantation. A complex-lesion population was studied (B2 type lesion=72.2% and C type lesion=20.3%). The mean time of a FD-OCT pull-back (from the set up to the completion of the pull back) was 2.1 min and in all but one (99.1%) the procedure was successful. No patients experienced major complications in terms of death, myocardial infarction, emergency revascularisation, embolisation, life-threatening arrhythmia, coronary dissection, prolonged and severe vessel spasm and contrast induced nephropathy. In the ambiguous lesion group, 60% of patients were treated with PCI, whilst in the others, PCI were deferred. In total, 113 deployed stents (33,6% chromium cobalt stent, 66,4% drug eluting stent) were imaged with OCT. OCT findings led to additional interventions in 24 out of 74 patients (32%): 15 had further balloon inflations, nine had additional stent deployment whilst two had both treatments. At clinical follow-up, (4.6 ± 3.,2 months), there were no death, acute myocardial infarctions and cases of stent thrombosis, whilst two patients underwent revascularisation for recurrence of angina. CONCLUSIONS The present registry shows that FD-OCT is a feasible and safe technique for guidance of coronary interventions. Randomised studies will confirm whether the use of FD-OCT will improve the clinical outcome.