and long procedural time. The present study was performed to assess the safety and efficacy of continuous IC adenosine infusion for the induction of maximal hyperemia for FFR measurement.
Methods
Patient PopulationPatients with an angiographically intermediate lesion (visual estimation: 50-75%) in a major epicardial coronary artery were prospectively and consecutively enrolled. Clinical and angiographic data are shown in Table 1. There were no patients with angiographically visible collateral flow to the target vessel. Patients with myocardial infarction, unstable clinical condition, regional wall motion ractional flow reserve (FFR) is an easily obtainable lesion-specific parameter for the physiological evaluation of epicardial coronary artery stenosis. This index is relatively independent of systemic blood pressure, heart rate, and contractility and is being increasingly used to assess the functional significance of intermediate lesions and the results of coronary interventions. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] FFR is the ratio of hyperemic flow in the presence of coronary artery stenosis to normal maximal flow, and it can be obtained by the ratio of the hyperemic distal coronary artery pressure to the aortic pressure. 9 Because distal coronary artery pressure is determined by both epicardial stenosis and distal resistance, maximal hyperemia is a key determinant for FFR in a fixed epicardial stenosis. Various pharmacologic stimuli are used to induce maximal hyperemia for FFR measurement; 10-12 however, the usefulness of continuous intracoronary (IC) infusion of adenosine has not been evaluated. Recent reports suggest that bolus adenosine administration is sometimes inadequate for the induction of maximal hyperemia 10,12-14 and intravenous (IV) adenosine infusion requires a large venous access, a large amount of adenosine
Intracoronary Continuous Adenosine Infusion
A Novel and Effective Way of Inducing Maximal Hyperemia for Fractional Flow Reserve MeasurementBon-Kwon Koo, MD, PhD; Cheol-Ho Kim, MD, PhD*; Sang-Hun Na, MD; Tae-Jin Youn, MD, PhD*; In-Ho Chae, MD, PhD*; Dong-Ju Choi, MD, PhD*; Hyo-Soo Kim, MD, PhD; Myoung-Mook Lee, MD, PhD; Byung-Hee Oh, MD, PhD; Young-Bae Park, MD, PhD; Yun-Shik Choi, MD, PhD; Seung-Jae Tahk, MD, PhD** Background Various methods are used to induce maximal hyperemia for physiologic studies, but the feasibility and efficacy of continuous intracoronary (IC) infusion of adenosine for measurement of fractional flow reserve (FFR) has not been well-defined.
Methods and ResultsPatients with intermediate coronary artery stenosis were consecutively enrolled. In the phase I study, FFR was measured after 3 dosages of IC adenosine infusion (180, 240 and 300 g/min) in 30 patients. The phase II study was performed to compare the hyperemic efficacy of IC infusion (240 g/min) with IC bolus injection (40, 80 g) and intravenous (IV) infusion (140 g·kg -1 ·min -1 ) of adenosine in 20 patients. In the phase I study, no significant differences in FFR were observed with the 3 different doses of IC infusion (p=0...