Intravascular ultrasound and fractional flow reserve serve as complementary techniques to provide critical anatomic and functional data for managing intermediate coronary stenosis.
Does the use of IVUS or FFR improve clinical outcomes compared to angiography alone in patients with intermediate coronary stenosis?
IVUS and FFR should be viewed as complementary rather than competing techniques for the evaluation of intermediate coronary stenosis.
Clinical decision making in patients with intermediate coronary stenosis is still debated. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) examination and/or functional assessment of coronary stenosis by fractional flow reserve (FFR) are currently used to define the severity of such lesions. There are very few studies with a small sample size that have a head-to-head comparison between IVUS and FFR in the evaluation of angiographically de novo intermediate lesions. There are no randomized, controlled trials to demonstrate the superiority of IVUS versus FFR in providing improved clinical outcomes in comparison with angiography alone. However, the issue of superiority might be irrelevant, because IVUS and FFR could be complementary techniques to be used in the catheterization laboratory to provide critical anatomic and functional data that permit more accurate decisions in the management of the patient.
Magni et al. (Mon,) conducted a review in Intermediate coronary stenosis. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and fractional flow reserve (FFR) vs. Angiography alone was evaluated. Intravascular ultrasound and fractional flow reserve serve as complementary techniques to provide critical anatomic and functional data for managing intermediate coronary stenosis.
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