Association between angiographic and biochemical indicators of the severity of coronary stenosis

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is characterized by atherosclerosis, which can cause substantial vascular luminal obstruction in epicardial vessels, leading to ischemic cardiac conditions including myocardial infarction. Estimation of the extent of a stenosis permits selection of an appropriate therapeutic intervention and assessment of prognosis. The traditional method of evaluating coronary artery stenosis (CAS) is based on determination of (local) diameter or cross-sectional area reduction as visualized during angiocardiography. Later, methods referring to trans-stenotic pressure gradient (or, nearly equivalently, ratio-based) measurements and computational fluid dynamics methods were devised. As an alternative for these (often) invasive approaches that are founded on (bio)physics, efforts have been undertaken to employ biochemical markers that may reflect the severity of CAS, and thus permit noninvasive diagnostic studies.