Safety and efficacy of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) guidance in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has been consistently shown in recent trials. However, prospective data on the clinical effects of IVUS usage in primary PCI are still warranted. The ULTRA-STEMI trial is a prospective investigator-initiated observational single-center cohort trial aiming to enroll 80 patients with STEMI.

To investigate the outcomes of patients with STEMI undergoing IVUS-guided PCI and correlate derived IVUS measurements with clinical, procedural, imaging and follow-up outcomes of interest.

Study participants will undergo primary PCI as per standardized procedures. IVUS pullbacks will be performed pre-intervention, post-lesion preparation, post-intervention and post-optimization using a 20 MHz digital IVUS (Eagle Eye Platinum, Philips). Manual thrombus aspiration will be performed in cases of high thrombus burden. The aspirated thrombi will be scanned with micro-computed tomography to extract volumetric measurements of the aspirated thrombotic burden. Moreover, angiographic, peri-procedural and 3-year follow-up data will be gathered. Co-primary endpoints will be cardiovascular mortality and target vessel failure, defined as the composite of: Cardiovascular mortality, target vessel myocardial infarction and/or clinically driven target vessel revascularization.

The results of the study are expected by the third quarter of 2029.

The ULTRA-STEMI trial will add to the existing literature the clinical, angiographic, micro-computed tomography and follow-up outcomes of IVUS-guided PCI in 80 patients presenting with STEMI.

Intravascular ultrasonography (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) guided percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) are alternative techniques to angiography-guided (ANG-g) PCI in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), especially for optimal stent deployment in coronary arteries. We conducted a network meta-analysis including studies comparing those three techniques. We searched databases for studies that compared IVUS, OCT, and ANG-g PCI in patients with CAD. Overall, 52 studies with 231,137 patients were included in this meta-analysis. ANG-g PCI had higher major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs), all-cause death, cardiac death, myocardial infarction (MI), target lesion revascularization (TLR), and stent thrombosis (ST) than IVUS-guided PCI. Of note, both OCT-guided and IVUS-guided PCI had similar outcomes. The frequency of MACEs, cardiac death, and MI were higher in ANG-g PCI than in OCT-guided PCI. The highest benefit was established with OCT for MACEs (P-score=.973), MI (P-score=.823), and cardiac death (P-score=.921) and with IVUS for all-cause death (P-score=.792), TLR (P -score=.865), and ST (P-score=.930). This network meta-analysis indicated that using OCT or IVUS for optimal stent implantation provides better outcomes in comparison with ANG-g in patients with CAD undergoing PCI.

Compared with intravascular ultrasound guidance, there is limited evidence for optical coherence tomography (OCT) guidance during primary percutaneous coronary intervention (pPCI) in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients.

We investigated the role of OCT in guiding a reperfusion strategy and improving the long-term prognosis of STEMI patients.

All patients who were diagnosed with STEMI and who underwent pPCI between January 2017 and December 2020 were enrolled and divided into OCT-guided versus angiography-guided cohorts. They had routine follow-up for up to 5 years or until the time of the last known contact. All-cause death and cardiovascular death were designated as the primary and secondary endpoints, respectively.

A total of 3,897 patients were enrolled: 2,696 (69.2%) with OCT guidance and 1,201 (30.8%) with angiographic guidance. Patients in the OCT-guided cohort were less often treated with stenting during pPCI (62.6% vs 80.2%; p<0.001). The 5-year cumulative rates of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality in the OCT-guided cohort were 10.4% and 8.0%, respectively, significantly lower than in the angiography-guided cohort (19.0% and 14.1%; both log-rank p<0.001). All 4 multivariate models showed that OCT guidance could significantly reduce 5-year all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR] in model 4: 0.689, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.551-0.862) and cardiovascular mortality (HR in model 4: 0.692, 95% CI: 0.536-0.895). After propensity score matching, the benefits of OCT guidance were consistent in terms of all-cause mortality (HR: 0.707, 95% CI: 0.548-0.913) and cardiovascular mortality (HR: 0.709, 95% CI: 0.526-0.955).

Compared with angiography alone, OCT guidance may change reperfusion strategies and lead to better long-term survival in STEMI patients undergoing pPCI. Findings in the current observational study should be further corroborated in randomised trials.

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) provides intra-procedural guidance in optimizing percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) and has been shown to improve clinical outcomes in stent implantation. However, current data on the benefit of IVUS during PCI in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients is mixed. We performed meta-analysis pooling available data assessing IVUS-guided versus angiography-guided PCI in STEMI patients.

We conducted a systematic search on PubMed and Embase for studies comparing IVUS versus angiography-guided PCI in STEMI. Mantel-Haenszel random effects model was used to calculate risk ratios (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for outcomes of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs), death, myocardial infarction (MI), target vessel revascularization (TVR), stent thrombosis (ST) and in-hospital mortality.

A total of 8 studies including 336,649 individuals presenting with STEMI were included for the meta-analysis. Follow-up ranged from 11 to 60 months. We found significant association between IVUS-guided PCI with lower risk for MACE (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.76-0.90) compared with angiography-guided PCI. We also found significant association between IVUS-guided PCI with lower risk for death, MI, TVR, and in-hospital mortality but not ST.

In our meta-analysis, IVUS-guided compared with angiography-guided PCI was associated with improved long-term and short-term clinical outcomes in STEMI patients.

Intracoronary imaging has become an important tool in the treatment of complex lesions with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). This retrospective cohort study identified 1,118,475 patients with PCI from the Nationwide Readmissions Database from 2017 to 2019. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) were identified with appropriate International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision codes. The primary outcome was major adverse cardiac events. The secondary outcomes include net adverse clinical events (NACEs), all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction (MI) readmission, admission for stroke, and emergency revascularization. The multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression was used to adjust for demographic and co-morbid confounders. Of 1,118,475 PCIs, 86,140 (7.7%) used IVUS guidance and 5,617 (0.5%) used OCT guidance. The median follow-up time was 184 days. The primary outcome of major adverse cardiac events was significantly lower for the IVUS (6.5% vs 7.6%; hazard ratio [HR] 0.89, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.86 to 0.91, p <0.001) and OCT (4.4% vs 7.6%; HR 0.69, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.79, p <0.001) groups. IVUS was associated with significantly lower rates of NACEs (8.4% vs 9.4%; HR 0.92, 95% CI 0.89 to 0.94, p <0.001), all-cause mortality (3.5% vs 4.3%; HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.82 to 0.88, p <0.001), readmission for MI (2.7% vs 3.0%; HR 0.95, 95% CI 0.91 to 0.99, p = 0.012), and admission for stroke (0.5% vs 0.6%; HR 0.86, 95% CI 0.78 to 0.95, p = 0.002). OCT was associated with significantly lower rates of NACEs (6.6% vs 9.4%; HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.89, p <0.001) and all-cause mortality (1.8% vs 4.3%; HR 0.51, 95% CI 0.42 to 0.63, p <0.001). Emergency revascularization was not significantly different with IVUS guidance. Readmission for MI, stroke, and emergency revascularization were not significantly different with OCT guidance. A subgroup analysis of patients with ST-elevation MI and non-ST-elevation MI showed similar results. In conclusion, the use of IVUS and OCT guidance with PCI were associated with significantly lower rates of morbidity and mortality in real-world practice.

While previous studies have demonstrated the superiority of ICI-guided PCI over an angiography-based approach, there are limited data on all-comer ACS patients. This study aimed to identify the characteristics and in-hospital outcomes of patients undergoing intracoronary imaging (ICI) guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute coronary syndrome (ACS).

All patient undergoing PCI for ACS in England and Wales between 2006 and 2019 were retrospectively analyzed and stratified according to ICI utilization. The outcomes assessed were in-hospital all-cause mortality and major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) using multivariable logistic regression models.

598,921 patients underwent PCI for ACS, of which 41,716 (7.0 %) had ICI which was predominantly driven by IVUS use (5.6 %). ICI use steadily increased from 1.4 % in 2006 to 13.5 % in 2019. Adjusted odds of mortality (OR 0.69, 95%CI 0.58-0.83) and MACCE (OR 0.77, 95%CI 0.73-0.83) were significantly lower in the ICI group. The association between ICI and improved outcomes varied according to vessel treated with both left main stem (LMS) and LMS/left anterior descending (LAD) PCI associated with significantly lower odds of mortality (OR 0.34, 95%CI 0.27-0.44, OR 0.51 95%CI 0.45-0.56) and MACCE (OR 0.44 95%CI 0.35-0.54, OR 0.67 95%CI 0.62-0.72) respectively.

Although ICI use has steadily increased, less than one in seven patients underwent ICI-guided PCI. The association between ICI use and improved in-hospital outcomes was mainly observed in PCI procedures involving LMS and LAD.

Intracoronary imaging (ICI) modalities, namely intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT), have shown to be able to reduce major adverse cardiovascular events in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Nevertheless, patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) have been practically excluded from contemporary large randomized controlled trials. The available data are limited and derive mostly from observational studies. Nevertheless, contemporary studies are in favor of ICI utilization in patients who undergo primary PCI. Regarding technical aspects of PCI, ICI has been associated with the implantation of larger stent diameters, higher balloon inflations and lower residual in-stent stenosis post-PCI. OCT, although used significantly less often than IVUS, is a useful tool in the context of myocardial infarction without obstructive coronary artery disease since, due to its high spatial resolution, it can identify the underlying mechanism of STEMI, and, thus, guide therapy. Stent thrombosis (ST) is a rare, albeit a potential lethal, complication that is expressed clinically as STEMI in the vast majority of cases. Use of ICI is encouraged with current guidelines in order to discriminate the mechanism of ST among stent malapposition, underexpansion, uncovered stent struts, edge dissections, ruptured neoatherosclerotic lesions and coronary evaginations. Finally, ICI has been proposed as a tool to facilitate stent deferring during primary PCI based on culprit lesion characteristics.

An analysis of published data and the results of our own studies reveal that the activation of a peripheral δ₂-opioid receptor (δ₂-OR) increases the cardiac tolerance to reperfusion. It has been found that this δ₂-OR is localized in cardiomyocytes. Endogenous opioids are not involved in the regulation of cardiac resistance to reperfusion. The infarct-limiting effect of the δ₂-OR agonist deltorphin II depends on the activation of several protein kinases, including PKCδ, ERK1/2, PI3K, and PKG. Hypothetical end-effectors of the cardioprotective effect of deltorphin II are the sarcolemmal K_ATP channels and the MPT pore.

Over the last decade, there has been a plethora of evidence to support the utilization of intravascular coronary imaging and physiological assessment to guide percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI). While there is a class I recommendation for the use of coronary physiology to guide PCI, the use of intravascular coronary imaging remains a class IIa recommendation. Herein, we aimed to review the recent scientific evidence from major trials highlighting the consideration for a future class I guideline recommendation for the use of intracoronary imaging.

The benefits of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) to guide and optimize PCI have been demonstrated in several large trials. These trials have demonstrated that IVUS reduces major adverse cardiovascular events. Similarly, intracoronary physiology has been demonstrated to be an important tool to guide revascularization decision-making and been associated with a lower incidence of death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, and repeat revascularization compared with angiography alone. With existing clinical outcomes data on the benefit of intracoronary physiology and imaging-guided PCI as well as forthcoming data from ongoing trials regarding the use of these modalities, the interventional cardiology community is bound to transition from routine PCI to precision-, image-, and physiology-guided PCI.

In-hospital mortality in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is 5-6%. Consequently, it is necessary to develop fundamentally novel drugs capable of reducing mortality in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Apelins could be the prototype for such drugs. Chronic administration of apelins mitigates adverse myocardial remodeling in animals with myocardial infarction or pressure overload. The cardioprotective effect of apelins is accompanied by blockage of the MPT pore, GSK-3β, and the activation of PI3-kinase, Akt, ERK1/2, NO-synthase, superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, matrix metalloproteinase, the epidermal growth factor receptor, Src kinase, the mitoK_ATP channel, guanylyl cyclase, phospholipase C, protein kinase C, the Na⁺/H⁺ exchanger, and the Na⁺/Ca²⁺ exchanger. The cardioprotective effect of apelins is associated with the inhibition of apoptosis and ferroptosis. Apelins stimulate the autophagy of cardiomyocytes. Synthetic apelin analogues are prospective compounds for the development of novel cardioprotective drugs.

Elderly patients presenting with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) represent a vulnerable population with comorbid conditions and complex coronary anatomy. We aimed to describe the utilization rate and outcomes of intravascular imaging to guide percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in this population.

The Nationwide Readmissions Database was queried for all hospitalizations for STEMI involving PCI from 2018 to 2019. Hospitalizations were stratified by patient age into a younger cohort <75 years (mean age 58.7 ± 9.5 years) and an older cohort ≥75 years. Propensity score-weighed regression analysis was used to identify the association of intravascular imaging with in-hospital mortality, 90-day all-cause readmission, and readmission for myocardial infarction (MI).

A total of 299,619 STEMI PCI hospitalizations were included. Intravascular imaging was utilized less frequently in the older cohort (6.8 % vs 7.8 %, odds ratio [OR] 0.87, 95 % CI 0.82-0.92, p < 0.001). In both cohorts, intravascular imaging was more likely to be used with anterior STEMI, complex PCI, mechanical support, and thrombectomy. Propensity score analysis showed the use of intravascular imaging was associated with lower in-hospital mortality in both cohorts (OR 0.60, 95 % CI 0.52-0.68, p < 0.001 in the younger cohort and OR 0.61, 95 % CI 0.51-0.72, p < 0.001 in the older cohort). There was no difference in 90-day all-cause readmission or readmission for MI with intravascular imaging.

Intravascular imaging during STEMI PCI is associated with lower in-hospital mortality regardless of age. Further studies are needed to understand the low utilization rates especially among elderly patients.

Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) has been shown to improve clinical outcomes in patients undergoing percutaneous intervention (PCI) in numerous trials. However, it is still underutilized outside of trial settings, and most trials include a significant proportion of patients with prior PCI. The aim of this study is to look at real-world use and outcomes in PCI-naïve patients who undergo IVUS-guided intervention.

Prospectively collected data from 10,574 consecutive patients undergoing their index PCI was retrospectively analyzed. 455 (4.3%) patients underwent IVUS, with a median follow-up of 4.6 years. Patients undergoing IVUS had higher levels of comorbidities including diabetes (27.5% vs. 19.7%, p < 0.001), hypertension (58.0% vs. 47.9%, p < 0.001), hypercholesterolemia (51.6% vs. 39.2%, p < 0.001) and were generally older (65.9 ± 14.5 vs. 64.5 ± 13.4 years, p = 0.031) with higher mean baseline creatinine levels (95.4 ± 63.3 vs. 87.8 ± 46.1 μmol/L). The strongest predictor of IVUS use was the operating consultant graduating from medical school after the year 2000 [OR 14.5 (3.5-59.8), p < 0.001] and the presence of calcific lesions [OR 5.2 (3.4-8.0) p < 0.001]. There was no significant difference in MACE nor 1-year mortality between patients undergoing IVUS-guided or angiography-only PCI on unadjusted analysis [OR 1.04 (0.73-1.5), p = 0.81, OR 1.055 (0.65-1.71) p = 0.828] nor mortality throughout the study period (HR 0.93 (0.69-1.26), p = 0.638). This held true for stents longer than 28 mm. Propensity matched analysis of patients similarly showed no mortality difference between arms for all patients and those with longer stents (p = 0.564 and p = 0.919).

The strongest predictors of IVUS use in PCI-naïve patients are the operator's year of graduation from medical school and proxy measures of calcific lesions. On both matched and adjusted analysis there was no evidence of improved mortality nor reduced MACE in this specific retrospective cohort, although this may well be explained by significant selection bias.

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) can overcome the intrinsic limitations of coronary angiography for lesion assessment and stenting. IVUS improves outcomes of patients presenting with stable or complex coronary artery disease, but dedicated data on the impact of IVUS-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains scarce.

We systematically searched Embase, MEDLINE, Web of Science Core Collection, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Google Scholar for studies that compared clinical outcomes for IVUS- versus angio-guided PCI in patients with AMI. The primary endpoint was all-cause mortality and the secondary endpoint major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). Mantel-Haenszel random-effects model was used to calculate pooled risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Nine studies (8 observational, 1 RCT) with a total of 838.902 patients (796.953 angio-guided PCI, 41.949 IVUS-guided PCI) were included. In patients with AMI, IVUS-guided PCI was associated with a significantly lower risk of all-cause mortality (pooled RR: 0.70; 95% CI, 0.59-0.82; p < 0.01), MACE (pooled RR: 0.86; 95% CI, 0.74-0.99; p = 0.04) and target vessel revascularization (TVR) (pooled RR: 0.83; 95% CI, 0.73-0.95; p < 0.01). In the subset of patients presenting with ST-segment elevation, IVUS-guided PCI remained associated with a reduced risk for both all-cause mortality (pooled RR: 0.79; 95% CI, 0.66-0.95, p = 0.01) and MACE (pooled RR: 0.86; 95% CI, 0.74-0.99, p = 0.04).

This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis comparing IVUS- versus angio-guided PCI in patients with AMI, showing a beneficial effect of IVUS-guided PCI on all-cause mortality, MACE and TVR. Results of ongoing dedicated prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings.