The assessment of non culprit coronary artery lesions in patients with ST segment elevated myocardial infarction and multivessel disease by control angiography with quantitative coronary angiographyDönmez, Esra; Koç, Mevlüt; Şeker, Taner; İçen, Yahya; Çayli, Murat
doi: 10.1007/s10554-016-0943-8pmid: 27448213
Conflicting data is present in the literature about patients who are treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) due to the exaggeration of the non culprit artery. The precise understanding of the non culprit artery in the setting of ST segment elevated myocardial infarct (STEMI) is important since the time and modality of the treatment is planned accordingly. The aim of this study is to evaluate the lesions in the non culprit coronary artery during primary PCI and control coronary angiography (CAG) using quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) in multivessel STEMI patients. In this study, multivessel disease STEMI patients whom underwent primary PCI between January 2010 and March 2011 were included. Critical stenosis degree was accepted as ≥70 % in the non culprit artery. All patients were evaluated with control CAG 1 month after primary PCI. Assessment with CAG was performed by two blinded cardiologists. QCA program was used to evaluate reference artery diameter (RAD), minimum luminal diameter (MLD) and degree of stenosis. With regard to the degree of stenosis, significant reduction was accepted as ≥15 % while % 5–15 decrease was accepted as moderate. Of the 81 patients, 61 were males and 20 were females (mean age 58.1 ± 10). In the control CAG, the degree of non culprit artery stenosis was found to be decreased (p < 0.001) while RAD and MLD were increased (p < 0.001 and p < 0.001 respectively). Significant decrease in critical non culprit artery lesions was detected in 22 patients (20.9 %) meanwhile moderate reduction was observed in 26 patients (24.7 %). In 14 patients (13.3 %), non culprit artery lesions accepted as critical during primary PCI were found to be non critical during the control CAG. Planned intervention was cancelled and medical treatment was initiated in those 14 patients. Our data indicated using QCA, approximately the half of non culprit lesions were found less critical during control CAG when compared to primary PCI. Therefore, it is concluded that complete revascularization during primary PCI should be avoided in multivessel STEMI patients and critical non culprit artery lesions should be re-evaluated with later control CAG.
OCT-measured plaque free wall angle is indicative for plaque burden: overcoming the main limitation of OCT?Hoogendoorn, Ayla; Gnanadesigan, Muthukaruppan; Zahnd, Guillaume; Ditzhuijzen, Nienke; Schuurbiers, Johan; Soest, Gijs; Regar, Evelyn; Wentzel, Jolanda
doi: 10.1007/s10554-016-0940-ypmid: 27437923
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the plaque free wall (PFW) measured by optical coherence tomography (OCT) and the plaque burden (PB) measured by intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). We hypothesize that measurement of the PFW could help to estimate the PB, thereby overcoming the limited ability of OCT to visualize the external elastic membrane in the presence of plaque. This could enable selection of the optimal stent-landing zone by OCT, which is traditionally defined by IVUS as a region with a PB < 40 %. PB (IVUS) and PFW angle (OCT and IVUS) were measured in 18 matched IVUS and OCT pullbacks acquired in the same coronary artery. We determined the relationship between OCT measured PFW (PFWOCT) and IVUS PB (PBIVUS) by non-linear regression analysis. An ROC-curve analysis was used to determine the optimal cut-off value of PFW angle for the detection of PB < 40 %. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated. There is a significant correlation between PFWOCT and PBIVUS (r2 = 0.59). The optimal cut-off value of the PFWOCT for the prediction of a PBIVUS < 40 % is ≥220° with a PPV of 78 % and an NPV of 84 %. This study shows that PFWOCT can be considered as a surrogate marker for PBIVUS, which is currently a common criterion to select an optimal stent-landing zone.
Asymmetric pulsation of rat carotid artery bifurcation in three-dimension observed by ultrasound imagingJin, Changzhu; Nam, Kweon-Ho; Paeng, Dong-Guk
doi: 10.1007/s10554-016-0934-9pmid: 27378096
The arterial structure cyclically fluctuates in three-dimensions (3-D) caused by pulsatile blood flow. The evaluation of arterial wall motion and hemodynamics contributes to early diagnosis of carotid atherosclerosis. Ultrasound is one of the most appropriate imaging modalities to evaluate arterial wall motion in real time. Although many previous studies have discussed the mechanical properties of the carotid artery bifurcation (CAB) from the two-dimensional (2-D) view, the spatio-temporal variation of carotid artery geometry in 3-D has not yet been investigated in detail. In this study, the 3-D data set of CAB from rats was acquired using a high spatio-temporal resolution ultrasound imaging system with a 40 MHz probe using mechanical sector scanning. A total of 31 slices of cross-section images were stored and a spoke scan algorithm was implemented to radially scan the lumen area in polar coordinates based on a pre-tracked seed point. The boundary of the arterial lumen was segmented using intensity-threshold-based boundary detection and fitted by polynomial regression. Two operators, who were trained with the same protocol to minimize inter- and intra-operator variability, manually segmented the lumen boundary on systolic and diastolic phase from the gray-scale images. Finally, the 3-D lumen geometries of CAB during one cardiac cycle were constructed based on the segmented lumen boundaries. From this constructed 3-D geometry, we observed that the CAB geometry favorably expanded to the anterior/posterior direction, parallel to the sagittal plane; and the manually segmented geometry also confirmed the asymmetrical change in bifurcation geometry. This is the first study on visualization and quantification on the asymmetrical variation of the CAB geometry of a rat in 3-D during a whole cardiac cycle. This finding may be useful in understanding hemodynamic etiology of various cardiovascular diseases such as arterial stenosis and its complications, and also provides reference information for numerical simulation studies on arterial wall motion.
Speckle tracking determination of mitral tissue annular displacement: comparison with strain and ejection fraction, and association with outcomes in haemodialysis patientsChiu, Diana; Abidin, Nik; Hughes, John; Sinha, Smeeta; Kalra, Philip; Green, Darren
doi: 10.1007/s10554-016-0946-5pmid: 27464963
Abnormal Global longitudinal strain (GLS) and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) are established poor prognostic risk factors in haemodialysis patients. Tissue motion annular displacement of mitral valve annulus (TMAD), determined by speckle tracking echocardiography (STE), can be performed rapidly and is an indicator of systolic dysfunction, but has been less well explored. This study aims to compare TMAD with GLS and LVEF and its association with outcomes in haemodialysis patients. 198 haemodialysis patients (median age 64.2 years, 69 % men) had 2D echocardiography, with STE determined GLS and TMAD. Bland–Altman analysis and linear regression assessed relationship between GLS, LVEF and TMAD. Cox regression analysis investigated association of TMAD with mortality and cardiac events. TMAD had low inter- and intra-observer variability with small biases and narrow limits of agreement (LOA) (bias of −0.01 ± 1.32 (95 % LOA was −2.60 to 2.58) and −0.07 ± 1.27 (95 % LOA −2.55 to 2.41) respectively). There was a moderate negative correlation between GLS and LVEF (r = −0.383, p < 0.001) and a weak positive correlation between TMAD and LVEF (r = 0.248, p < 0.001). There was strong negative correlation of TMAD with GLS (r = −0.614, p < 0.001). In a multivariable Cox regression analysis, TMAD was not associated with mortality (HR 1.04, 95 % CI 0.91–1.19), cardiac death (HR 1.03, 95 % CI 0.80–1.32) or cardiac events (HR 0.91, 95 % CI 0.80–1.02). TMAD is a quick and reproducible alternative to GLS which may be very useful in cardiovascular risk assessment, but does not have the same prognostic value in HD patients as GLS.
Comparison of 4D flow and 2D velocity-encoded phase contrast MRI sequences for the evaluation of aortic hemodynamicsBollache, Emilie; Ooij, Pim; Powell, Alex; Carr, James; Markl, Michael; Barker, Alex
doi: 10.1007/s10554-016-0938-5pmid: 27435230
The purpose of this study was to compare aortic flow and velocity quantification using 4D flow MRI and 2D CINE phase-contrast (PC)-MRI with either one-directional (2D-1dir) or three-directional (2D-3dir) velocity encoding. 15 healthy volunteers (51 ± 19 years) underwent MRI including (1) breath-holding 2D-1dir and (2) free breathing 2D-3dir PC-MRI in planes orthogonal to the ascending (AA) and descending (DA) aorta, as well as (3) free breathing 4D flow MRI with full thoracic aorta coverage. Flow quantification included the co-registration of the 2D PC acquisition planes with 4D flow MRI data, AA and DA segmentation, and calculation of AA and DA peak systolic velocity, peak flow and net flow volume for all sequences. Additionally, the 2D-3dir velocity taking into account the through-plane component only was used to obtain results analogous to a free breathing 2D-1dir acquisition. Good agreement was found between 4D flow and 2D-3dir peak velocity (differences = −3 to 6 %), peak flow (−7 %) and net volume (−14 to −9 %). In contrast, breath-holding 2D-1dir measurements exhibited indices significantly lower than free breathing 2D-3dir and 2D-1dir (differences = −35 to −7 %, p < 0.05). Finally, high correlations (r ≥ 0.97) were obtained for indices estimated with or without eddy current correction, with the lowest correlation observed for net volume. 4D flow and 2D-3dir aortic hemodynamic indices were in concordance. However, differences between respiration state and 2D-1dir and 2D-3dir measurements indicate that reference values should be established according to the PC-MRI sequence, especially for the widely used net flow (e.g. stroke volume in the AA).