Non-obstructive high-risk plaques increase the risk of future culprit lesions comparable to obstructive plaques without high-risk features: The iconic study
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-1-2020
Publication Title
European Heart Journal Cardiovascular Imaging
Abstract
Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author(s) 2020. Aims High-risk plaque (HRP) and non-obstructive coronary artery disease independently predict adverse events, but their importance to future culprit lesions has not been resolved. We sought to determine in patients prior to confirmed acute coronary syndrome (ACS) the association between lesion percent diameter stenosis (%DS), and the absolute number and prevalence of HRP. The secondary objective was to examine the relative importance of nonobstructive HRP in future culprit lesions. Methods Within the ICONIC study, a nested case-control study of patients undergoing coronary computed tomographic and results angiography (coronary CT), we included ACS cases with culprit lesions confirmed by invasive coronary angiography and coregistered to baseline coronary CT. Quantitative CT was used to evaluate obstructive (>_50%) and non-obstructive (_2 features of spotty calcification, positive remodelling, or low-attenuation plaque at baseline. A total of 234 patients with downstream ACS over 54 (interquartile range 5-525.5) days exhibited 198/898 plaques with HRP on coronary CT. While HRP was less prevalent in nonobstructive (19.7%, 161/819) than obstructive lesions (46.8%, 37/79, P < 0.001), non-obstructive plaque comprised 81.3% (161/198) of HRP lesions overall. Among the 128 patients with identifiable culprit lesion precursors, the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) was 1.85 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.26-2.72] for HRP, with no interaction between %DS and HRP (P = 0.82). Compared to non-obstructive HRP lesions, obstructive lesions without HRP exhibited a non-significant HR of 1.41 (95% CI 0.61-3.25, P = 0.42). Conclusions While HRP is more prevalent among obstructive lesions, non-obstructive HRP lesions outnumber those that are obstructive and confer risk clinically approaching that of obstructive lesions without HRP.
Volume
21
Issue
9
First Page
973
Last Page
980
Recommended Citation
Ferraro RA, van Rosendael AR, Lu Y, Andreini D, Al-Mallah MH, Cademartiri F, Chinnaiyan K, Chow BJW, Conte E, Cury RC, Feuchtner G, de Araújo Gonçalves P, Hadamitzky M, Kim YJ, Leipsic J, Maffei E, Marques H, Plank F, Pontone G, Raff GL, Villines TC, Lee SE, Al'Aref SJ, Baskaran L, Cho I, Danad I, Gransar H, Budoff MJ, Samady H, Stone PH, Virmani R, Narula J, Berman DS, Chang HJ, Bax JJ, Min JK, Shaw LJ, Lin FY. Non-obstructive high-risk plaques increase the risk of future culprit lesions comparable to obstructive plaques without high-risk features: the ICONIC study. Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging. 2020 Sep 1;21(9):973-980. doi: 10.1093/ehjci/jeaa048. PMID: 32535636; PMCID: PMC7440964.
DOI
10.1093/ehjci/jeaa048
ISSN
20472404
PubMed ID
32535636