Impact of intravascular ultrasound for coronary bifurcations treated with last-generation stents: insights from the ULTRA-BIFURCAT registry

BACKGROUND: Bifurcation lesions are associated with higher rates of major adverse cardiac events (MACE). AIM: To investigate the impact of imaging-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in a real-world population with coronary bifurcation lesions. METHODS AND RESULTS: From the ULTRA-BIFURCAT registry, we compared intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) vs. angiographic guidance in a cohort of 3486 propensity matched patients. MACE, a composite of all-cause death, myocardial infarction (MI), target-lesion revascularization, and stent thrombosis was the primary endpoint. Subgroup analyses were performed for unprotected left main (ULM) and non-ULM disease. PSM generated 1743 pairs. MACE occurred in 154 (9%) patients in the IVUS-guided group and in 199 (11%) patients in the angio-guided group (P = 0.09). IVUS guidance was associated with lower MACE in the ULM population [hazard ratio (HR) 0.62, 95% confidence internal (CI) 0.46-0.83], but had no impact in the non-ULM population (HR 1.12, 95% CI 0.83-1.51), P for interaction = 0.006. IVUS was associated with a reduction in all-MI (HR 0.32, 95% CI 0.16-0.64) in the ULM population and with lower stent thrombosis (ST) in the non-ULM population (HR 0.24, 95% CI 0.08-0.71). Provisional stenting was associated with lower MACE in the ULM population (HR 0.67, 95% CI 0.45-0.98), whereas kissing balloon (HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.56-0.99) and ultra-thin stents (HR 0.44, 95% CI 0.29-0.67) were protective factors in the non-ULM population. CONCLUSION: In a real-world scenario, IVUS guidance during drug eluting stent (DES) implantation is associated with a lower rate of MACE in patients with ULM coronary bifurcation lesions. In non-ULM bifurcations, no difference was observed on MACE, while IVUS guidance was associated with a lower rate of ST.