Background: Worldwide, coronary artery disease (CAD) continues to be a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Myocardial ischemia symptoms will be present in a large proportion of patients with obstructive CAD; hence it is important for doctors to make informed judgements about revascularization.
Objectives: The aim of the current work was to employ two independent minimally invasive modalities, fractional flow reserve (FFR) and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), to evaluate the functional relevance of intermediate coronary artery lesions identified by visual evaluation by coronary angiography.
Patients and methods: This study comprised a total of 40 patients, hospitalized at the National Heart Institute and other facilities who underwent elective coronary angiography (40% to 70% by visual evaluation) for moderate non-left main coronary artery disease at one or more major epicardial coronary arteries. Patients were assessed by FFR, IVUS.
Results: The optimum minimum lumen area (MLA) cutoff value that compatible with ischemic FFR readings was 3 mm², which had a sensitivity of 78.92%, a specificity of 53%, and predictive values of 46.5% and 81%. Additionally, evaluation of the coronary artery lesions in accordance with the locations of the lesions in the primary epicardial vessels and the correlation between the MLA gathered by IVUS and the FFR values for these lesions were detected to determine the best cutoff value for each vessel individually.
Conclusion: It could be concluded that there is no statistical relevance between the target vessel and FFR. The FFR score and the presence or absence of diabetes were statistically significantly correlated.