Impact of Eicosapentaenoic Acid Treatment on the Fibrous Cap Thickness in Patients with Coronary Atherosclerotic Plaque: An Optical Coherence Tomography Study

Eicosapentaenoic acid therapy is associated with decreased coronary plaque instability assessed using optical frequency domain imaging

“…Second, EPA lowered the levels of pentraxin 3, an inflammatory marker associated with TCFA . Yamano et al showed that EPA administration for 8 months significantly increased the FCT in OCT analysis for non‐culprit plaques with a percent diameter stenosis of 30% to 70% . Although the mean minimum FCT was higher in the EPA group than in the no‐EPA group (Table ), EPA therapy was not an independent predictor of TCFA, probably because of the small sample size (Table ).…”

Can pleiotropic effects of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) impact residual cardiovascular risk?

“…• EPA-plus-statin group had significantly increased fibrous-cap thickness (P < 0.0001), numerically decreased lipid arc (P = 0.27) and length (P = 0.13), and significantly less macrophage accumulation (P = 0.02) vs. statin-alone group [21] • EPA-plus-statin group had significantly increased fibrous-cap thickness (P = 0.0003) and decreased lipid arc (P = 0.0074) vs. statin-alone group [46] • Fibrous-cap thickness increased in both groups but to a greater extent in EPA group (P = 0.001 EPA vs. control); no change in lipid arc observed in either group (P = 0.106 EPA; P = 0.603 control) [47] AA: arachidonic acid; ACS: acute coronary syndrome; baPWV: brachial ankle pulse wave velocity; DHA: docosahexaenoic acid; EPA: eicosapentaenoic acid; IB-IVUS: integrated backscatter intravascular ultrasound; IMT: intima-media thickness; IVUS: intravascular ultrasound; MDCT: multi-detector row computed tomography; OCT: optical coherence tomography.…”

“…Multiple clinical studies have evaluated the effects of EPA (often in combination with a statin) on atherosclerotic plaques using a range of plaque imaging modalities including coronary angiography, computed tomographic angiography, multidetector computed tomography, and carotid artery intimamedia thickness as measured by ultrasound, intravascular ultrasound, and optical coherence tomography [21,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. Key results of these studies are highlighted in Table 1.…”

“…Reported effects of EPA on plaques include decreases in the lumen diameter [36], percentage of stenosis [36], plaque volume [38,43,45], lipid volume [45], and intima-media thickness [39][40][41]; increases in fibrous-cap thickness [21,46,47] and fibrous volume [44]; and prevention of plaque progression [37].…”

Optical Coherence Tomography and Virtual-Histology Intravascular Ultrasound

“…Serial OCT studies have documented an increase in fibrous cap thickness, especially with lipid lowering agents. [11][12][13][14][15] Studies by Mann and Davies 16 and of Burke et al 17 showed that plaque rupture and healing were common and more often led to lesion progression than to acute events.…”