QUANTIFICATION OF THE MINIMAL LUMINAL CROSS-SECTIONAL AREA AFTER CORONARY STENTING BY 2-DIMENSIONAL AND 3-DIMENSIONAL INTRAVASCULAR ULTRASOUND VERSUS EDGE-DETECTION AND VIDEODENSITOMETRY

The use of 2-dimensional intravascular ultrasound (2-D IVUS) to improv e the outcome of coronary stenting has gained clinical acceptance, and recently 3-D IVUS has been introduced to clinical practice. However, there have been no comprehensive studies comparing the measurements of the coronary dimensions after stenting obtained by the different appr oaches of IVUS and quantitative coronary angiography. We examined tile minimal luminal cross-sectional area of 38 stents using 2-D IVUS, 3-D IVUS, and 2 standard methods of quantitative coronary angiography, ed ge detection (ED) and videodensitometry (VD). Correlations between 2-D IVUS and ED (r = 0.72; p < 0.0001), VD (r = 0.87; p < 0.0001), and 3- D IVUS (r = 0.81; p < 0.0001) were higher than the correlations seen b etween 3-D IVUS and ED (r 0.58; p < 0.0005) and VD (r = 0.70; p < 0.00 01). The measurements by 2-D and 3-D IVUS (8.32 +/- 2.50 mm(2) and 8.0 5 +/- 2.66 mm(2)) were larger than the values obtained by the quantita tive angiographic techniques ED and VD (7.55 +/- 2.22 mm(2) and 7.27 /- 2.21 mm(2)). Thus, concordance was seen among all of the 4 techniqu es, confirming the validity of using IVUS for determination of the min imal luminal cross-sectional area after coronary stenting. A particula rly good correlation was found between VD and IVUS, perhaps because me asurement of the luminal area is the basic quantification approach of both techniques, whereas the lower correlations of ED with IVUS and VD may be explained by the dependence of ED on the angiographic projecti ons used, which is especially important in eccentric stent configurati ons.