The demonstration by IVUS of atheromatous remodeling permits the safe use of balloons traditionally considered oversized, resulting in significantly improved luminal dimensions without increased rates of dissection or ischemic complications.

The MULTI-LINK (ML) stent is a novel second generation coronary stent. The ACS MultiLink Stent Clinical Equivalence in De Novo Lesions Trial (ASCENT) randomized 1,040 patients with single, de novo native vessel lesions to treatment with the ML stent or the benchmark Palmaz-Schatz (PS) stent, to demonstrate that the ML stent was not inferior to (i.e., equivalent or better than) the PS stent in terms of target vessel failure by 9 months. Successful stent delivery was achieved in 98.8% versus 96.9% of patients, with a slightly lower postprocedural diameter stenosis (8% vs 10%, p = 0.04), and no difference in 30-day major adverse cardiac events (5.0% vs 6.5%) for the ML stent versus the PS stent. The primary end point of target vessel failure at 9 months was seen in 15.1% of ML-treated patients versus 16.7% of PS-treated patients, with the ML proving to be equal or superior to the PS stent (p <0.001 by test for equivalency). In a prespecified subset, angiographic restudy showed a nonsignificant trend for reduced ML restenosis (16.0% vs 22.1%). Thus, the ML stent showed excellent deliverability and acute results, with 9-month clinical and 6-month angiographic outcomes that were equivalent or better than the PS stent.

We report treatment of a lesion with coronary stent underexpansion due to heavily calcified plaque. Conventional balloon angioplasty was attempted for in-stent restenosis, but the lesion was undilatable despite 25-atm inflation pressure. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) revealed stent underexpansion due to heavily calcified plaque. Rotational atherectomy was performed using a stepped burr approach, after which repeat IVUS revealed marked ablation of the stent-calcium complex. Adjunctive balloon angioplasty then easily resulted in full balloon and stent expansion, with an excellent angiographic and IVUS result. The patient's hospital course was uneventful.

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