Long-term outcomes of patients with normal fractional flow reserve and thin-cap fibroatheroma

Enrico Fabris, Balázs Berta, Tobias Hommels, Tomasz Roleder, Renicus S. Hermanides, Fernando Rivero, Clemens von Birgelen, Javier Escaned, Cyril Camaro, Mark W. Kennedy, Bruno Pereira, Michael Magro, Holger Nef, Sebastian Reith, Magda Roleder-Dylewska, Pawel Gasior, Krzysztof Piotr Malinowski, Giuseppe De Luca, Hector M. Garcia-Garcia, Juan F. GranadaWojciech Wojakowski, Elvin Kedhi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The long-term prognostic implications of fractional flow reserve (FFR)-negative lesions hosting vulnerable plaques remain unsettled. AIMS: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of non-ischaemic lesions hosting optical coherence tomography (OCT)-detected thin-cap fibroatheromas (TCFA) with first and recurrent cardiovascular events during follow-up up to 5 years in a diabetes mellitus (DM) patient population. METHODS: COMBINE OCT-FFR is a prospective, international, double-blind, natural history study. Patients with DM and with ≥1 FFR-negative lesion were classified into 2 groups based on the presence or absence of ≥1 TCFA lesion. The primary endpoint (PE) is a composite of cardiac mortality, target vessel-related myocardial infarction (TV-MI), clinically driven target lesion revascularisation (TLR), or unstable angina (UA) requiring hospitalisation during follow-up up to 5 years. RESULTS: Among 390 DM patients (age 67.5±9 years; 37% female) with ≥1 FFR-negative lesion, 292 (74.9%) were TCFA-negative while 98 (25.1%) were TCFA-positive. The PE occurred more frequently in TCFA-positive than in TCFA-negative patients (21.4% vs 8.2%, hazard ratio [HR] 2.89, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.61-5.20; p<0.001; 6.42 vs 2.46 events per 100 patient-years, rate ratio [RR] 2.61, 95% CI: 1.38-4.90; p=0.002). Furthermore, when TV-MI, TLR, and UA were treated as recurrent components of the PE, TCFA-positive patients experienced a higher risk of recurrent events (HR 2.89, 95% CI; 1.74-4.80; p<0.001; 13.45 vs 2.87 events per 100 patient-years, RR 4.69, 95% CI: 2.86-7.83; p<0.001). A multivariable analysis identified the presence of TCFA as an independent predictor of the PE (HR 2.76, 95% CI: 1.53-4.97; p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: OCT-detected TCFA-positive lesions, although not ischaemia-generating, are associated with an increased risk of adverse events during long-term follow-up. CLINICALTRIALS: gov: NCT02989740.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)e1099-e1107
JournalEuroIntervention
Volume18
Issue number13
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Feb 2023

Keywords

  • NLA

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