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Comparative efficacy of two paclitaxel-coated balloons with different excipient coatings in patients with coronary in-stent restenosis: A pooled analysis of the Intracoronary Stenting and Angiographic Results: Optimizing Treatment of Drug Eluting Stent In-Stent Restenosis 3 and 4 trials Microvascular disease in chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: a role for pulmonary veins and systemic vasculature Coronary Microcirculation Downstream Non-Infarct-Related Arteries in the Subacute Phase of Myocardial Infarction: Implications for Physiology-Guided Revascularization Updated clinical classification of pulmonary hypertension Cardiotoxicity and Cardiac Monitoring Among Chemotherapy-Treated Breast Cancer Patients Lesion-Specific and Vessel-Related Determinants of Fractional Flow Reserve Beyond Coronary Artery Stenosis Treatment of calcified coronary lesions with Palmaz-Schatz stents. An intravascular ultrasound study Characteristics of abnormal post-stent optical coherence tomography findings in hemodialysis patients Effect of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol on the geometry of coronary bifurcation lesions and clinical outcomes of coronary interventions in the J-REVERSE registry Genetic analyses in a cohort of 191 pulmonary arterial hypertension patients

EditorialOctober 2017, Volume 10, Issue 10

JOURNAL:Circ Cardiovasc Imaging. Article Link

High-Risk Coronary Atherosclerosis: Is It the Plaque Burden, the Calcium, the Lipid, or Something Else?

Akiko Maehara, Gregg W. Stone

ABSTRACT

Cardiac death and myocardial infarction usually result from thrombotic occlusion of a coronary artery with underlying atherosclerotic plaque. Histologically, most underlying plaques that have resulted in sudden cardiac death or myocardial infarction because of coronary thrombosis (vulnerable plaque) are ruptured thin-cap fibroatheromas with large plaque burden and a lipid-rich necrotic core. Second most common are erosions of proteoglycan-rich plaques with thrombosis, despite an intact fibrous cap. The extent that macroscopic or microscopic calcification contributes to plaque instability and thrombosis is controversial. Both fibroatheromas and erosion-prone plaques may be calcified and, occasionally, an isolated calcified nodule has been associated with coronary thrombosis. Using noninvasive and invasive imaging techniques, new in vivo insights into the role of calcification in patient and plaque vulnerability are emerging. The computed tomography (CT)-derived coronary artery calcium score (CACS) accounts for the area and the maximum density of each detected calcium deposit in the entire coronary tree and has proven useful in predicting future cardiovascular events in asymptomatic patients at intermediate risk. CT angiography has demonstrated that hypolucent plaques with positive remodeling or a napkin-ring sign predict future cardiac death, myocardial infarction, or acute coronary syndromes (ACS; patient-level analysis). Finally, prospective intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) studies have shown that a large plaque burden, small minimal lumen area (MLA), and composition consistent with a thin-cap fibroatheroma by radiofrequency analysis identifies those plaques that are likely to cause future adverse cardiovascular events (lesion-level analysis). In this regard, coronary calcification has been correlated with plaque burden but not luminal stenosis. Reconciling these differences, especially the apparent discordance between plaque burden, coronary calcium, and lipid as risk factors is a matter of importance.