IMR Press / RCM / Volume 25 / Issue 3 / DOI: 10.31083/j.rcm2503108
Open Access Review
The Role of Coronary Physiology Assessment in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Stable Angina. Dive Inside Recent Findings of Diffuse Coronary Disease Treatment
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1 Department of Cardiology, University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila”, 050474 Bucharest, Romania
2 Emergency Clinical Hospital Dr. Bagdasar-Arseni, 041915 Bucharest, Romania
*Correspondence: flavius.gherasie@drd.umfcd.ro (Flavius-Alexandru Gherasie)
These authors contributed equally.
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2024, 25(3), 108; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm2503108
Submitted: 3 December 2023 | Revised: 2 January 2024 | Accepted: 9 January 2024 | Published: 15 March 2024
(This article belongs to the Section Cardiovascular Intervention and Therapeutics)
Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Coronary physiology is widely used to assess epicardial coronary lesions in patients with stable angina. Based on the available evidence, physiology plays a crucial role in diagnosing and treating patients. There have been invasive methods for determining cardiac physiology, such as fractional flow reserve and instantaneous wave-free ratio. Still, new non-invasive approaches provide extra anatomical information, such as fractional flow reserve computed tomography (FFR-CT) based on computed tomography and physiology based on angiography. Even though FFR-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is clinically beneficial, one-third of patients retain suboptimal FFR after the procedure, associated with severe adverse events, rendering PCI in diffuse coronary artery disease questionable. Using the pullback pressure gradient (PPG), we can analyze the magnitude and extent of pressure losses; a lower value may indicate diffuse disease, while a high value with an abrupt curve may indicate focal disease. Since PCI is not the best option for treating diffuse coronary disease, current strategies focus on conservatively using medical therapy or bypass surgery. It has been demonstrated that patients with diffuse disease of the left anterior descending (LAD) are at a greater risk of developing occlusion of the left internal mammary artery graft than those with focal disease and that maximal medical therapy may be the most effective treatment for these patients.

Keywords
coronary physiology
coronary artery disease
angina
percutaneous coronary intervention
coronary microcirculation dysfunction
fractional flow reserve
hyperemic pullback pressure gradient
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