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Background: Optical-coherence-tomography (OCT) is an emerging invasive coronary imaging with still undefined clinical value. Recent data have underlined daily impact of such technique in several clinical settings such as acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) guidance. We aimed at assessing the trends and outcomes of OCT use in a high-volume percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI)-center., Methods: Over 6 years, 1025 coronary artery segments in 877 patients underwent OCT evaluation. Clinical and procedural characteristics were prospectively collected. Clinical setting for OCT was: "Diagnostic OCT" (OCT for lesion evaluation after coronary angiography without further PCI); "PCI-guidance OCT" (OCT as a guidance for complex PCI, both by intention or after diagnostic OCT). Primary study end-point was the occurrence of target-vessel-failure (TVF) during the follow-up., Results: Overall, OCT was successful in 99.1% of attempted lesions. Only one complication (coronary dissection requiring urgent PCI) occurred during OCT. After a follow-up of 695 ± 562 days, TVF occurred in 8.2% of cases. Despite similar baseline characteristics, TVF-free survival curves were different in the two populations (5.4% after diagnostic OCT and 9.9% after PCI-guidance OCT). Minimal-lumen-area (MLA) of target lesion was independently associated with TVF (HR 0.7, 95% CI 0.6-0.8). This was mainly driven by a significant impact of MLA in patients not revascularized (HR 0.6, 95% CI 0.4-0.9). TVF did not change according to the study period despite the selection of patients with increasing complexity., Conclusions: OCT has a good safety profile across a broad spectrum of patients encountered in daily practice. The easy-to-assess MLA parameter may help stratify prognosis of patients undergoing OCT. These data call for further evaluations of OCT clinical impact., Summary: OCT is a light-based imaging tool which had subvert the quite ordinary world of coronary imaging and the present study evaluates OCT use in a high-volume center. Our results suggest that application of OCT in "real world" patients presenting higher risk has a good safety profile. Several factors could predict a worse long-term outcome in patients undergoing OCT evaluation, mostly related to more complex clinical conditions. These findings could encourage even low-to intermediate volume centers to improve their OCT use in daily practice., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Left main (LM) atherosclerotic lesions affect clinical outcomes. Frequency domain-optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) allows detailed characterization of non-ostial coronary atherosclerotic lesions. The clinical impact of FD-OCT assessment of LM bifurcation disease on the revascularization decision is unknown., Methods: Patients who underwent FD-OCT assessment to guide management of angiographically intermediate distal LM stenosis were retrospectively selected. The FD-OCT LM criteria for percutaneous or surgical revascularization were: Clinical follow-up was obtained to evaluate the occurrence of target vessel failure (TVF) defined as cardiac death and/or acute myocardial infarction (AMI) not related to other vessel and/or target vessel revascularization., Results: Out of 131 patients underwent FD-OCT assessment of LM, 122 patients (93%) entered the study. Based on FD-OCT features, 58 (48%) patients were conservatively managed, while the remaining 64 (52%) were revascularized by stenting (n=48) or surgery (n=16). After a mean follow-up of 18months, TVF-free survival was not different between patients undergoing conservative management vs. revascularization (HR 0.40, CI 95% 0.10-1.61, P=0.20). Of note, two patients only in the conservative management group had TVF (elective LM stenting, no death or myocardial infarction)., Conclusions: This preliminary experience suggests that a FD-OCT based management for patients with angiographically-intermediate LM bifurcation stenosis may help identify patients in whom revascularization could be deferred. Such observation calls for further evaluations by appropriately designed trials., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To analyze the immediate and long-term outcomes of transradial (TR) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) to unprotected left main stem (ULMS) bifurcation and to assess the main aspects affecting access-site choice in this specific PCI setting., Background: TR-PCI to the ULMS is feasible, but data specifically comparing TR and transfemoral (TF) approaches in ULMS-bifurcation PCI are limited., Methods: We set up a two-center (Rome, Italy and Oxford, United Kingdom) retrospective registry aimed at comparing the immediate and 1-year outcomes of consecutive patients who underwent ULMS-bifurcation PCI with drug-eluting stent implantation from 2005 to 2013 using the TF or TR approach. Clinical endpoints were: total mortality; major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular event (MACCE) rate; and net adverse clinical event (NACE) rate., Results: A total of 467 patients undergoing ULMS-bifurcation PCI were enrolled (221 TF and 244 TR). TR approach was increasingly adopted over time for both simple and complex procedures. No significant differences were observed between the TR and TF groups in terms of 1-year mortality (10.7% vs 9.8%; P=.79) and MACCE (18.2% vs 15.2%; P=.44). TR patients, as compared with TF, had significantly fewer access-site complications (2.0% vs 6.3% in TF; P=.02), resulting in a significant reduction of NACE rate (6.9% vs 15.7;%; P=.01)., Conclusion: In patients undergoing ULMS-bifurcation PCI, the selection of TR instead of TF approach is associated with similar early and long-term ischemic complications and with a significant reduction of access-site complications, resulting in lower NACE rate.

Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are released from the bone marrow during cardiac ischemic events, potentially influencing vascular and myocardial repair. We assessed the clinical and angiographic correlates of EPC mobilization at the time of primary percutaneous coronary intervention in 78 patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction and the impact of both baseline and follow-up EPC levels on left ventricular (LV) remodeling. Blood samples were drawn from the aorta and the culprit coronary artery for cytofluorimetric EPC detection (CD34+CD45dimKDR+ cells, in percentage of cytofluorimetric counts). Area at risk was assessed by Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation myocardial jeopardy index, thrombotic burden as thrombus score and microvascular obstruction (MVO) as a combination of ST segment resolution and myocardial blush grade. Echocardiographic evaluation of LV remodeling was performed at 1-year follow-up in 54 patients, whereas peripheral EPC levels were reassessed in 40 patients. EPC levels during primary percutaneous coronary intervention were significantly higher in intracoronary than in aortic blood (0.043% vs 0.0006%, p <0.001). Both intracoronary and aortic EPC were related to area at risk extent, to intracoronary thrombus score (p <0.001), and inversely to MVO (p = 0.001). Peripheral EPC levels at 1-year follow-up were lower in patients with LV remodeling than in those without (0.001% [0.001 to 0.002] vs 0.003% [0.002 to 0.010]; p = 0.01) and independently predicted absence of remodeling at multivariate analysis. In conclusion, a rapid intracoronary EPC recruitment takes place in the early phases of ST elevation myocardial infarction, possibly reflecting an attempted reparative response. The extent of this mobilization seems to be correlated to the area at risk and to the amount of MVO. Persistently low levels of EPC are associated to LV remodeling., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)