Quantification of Coronary Atherosclerosis in the Assessment of Coronary Artery Disease.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-1-2018

Publication Title

Circ Cardiovasc Imaging

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis of coronary artery disease and management strategies have relied solely on the presence of diameter stenosis ≥50%. We assessed whether direct quantification of plaque burden (PB) and plaque characteristics assessed by coronary computed tomography angiography could provide additional value in terms of predicting rapid plaque progression.

METHODS AND RESULTS: From a 13-center, 7-country prospective observational registry, 1345 patients (60.4±9.4 years old; 57.1% male) who underwent repeated coronary computed tomography angiography >2 years apart were enrolled. For conventional angiographic analysis, the presence of stenosis ≥50%, number of vessel involved, segment involvement score, and the presence of high-risk plaque feature were determined. For quantitative analyses, PB and annual change in PB (△PB/y) in the entire coronary tree were assessed. Clinical outcomes (cardiac death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and coronary revascularization) were recorded. Rapid progressors, defined as a patient with ≥median value of △PB/y (0.33%/y), were older, more frequently male, and had more clinical risk factors than nonrapid progressors (all

CONCLUSIONS: Direct quantification of atherosclerotic PB in addition to conventional angiographic assessment of coronary artery disease might be beneficial for improving risk stratification of coronary artery disease.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT02803411.

Volume

11

Issue

7

First Page

007562

Last Page

007562

DOI

10.1161/CIRCIMAGING.117.007562

ISSN

1942-0080

PubMed ID

30012825

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