I n multivessel coronary artery disease (CAD), noninvasive testing usually underestimates the extent of ischemia-more so when one of the lesions is a chronic total occlusion (CTO). Ischemia, regardless of the method by which it is diagnosed, is a major determinant of outcomes in CAD. We present a case of multivessel CAD wherein the determination of fractional flow reserve (FFR) was useful in revealing the evidence of ischemia, thereby resolving the ambiguity of a stenosis.
Case ReportAn 82-year-old man presented with acute onset of dyspnea and chest pain. His history included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (emphysema and bronchitis), chronic kidney disease, depression, chronic atrial fibrillation, hypertension, congestive heart failure, and intermittent claudication after walking about 10 yards. A year before the current presentation, he had undergone implantation of a biventricular automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (AICD) for symptomatic congestive heart failure, after medical therapy had failed. A dipyridimole nuclear stress test performed before AICD insertion showed an inferior infarction without ischemia (Fig. 1), and the patient's echocardiogram showed severe diffuse global hypokinesis, with a left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) of 0.15.He was hospitalized and diagnosed with myocardial infarction (peak troponin I level, 5.04 ng/mL). After his medical management was optimized, the patient underwent coronary angiography. This showed 40% stenosis of the distal left main coronary artery (LMCA) and 80% stenosis (in tandem) of the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD), with septal collateral vessels (Fig. 2) from the "donor" LAD to an occluded right coronary artery (RCA) (Fig. 3). He also had occlusion of the right external iliac artery and 70% stenosis of the left external iliac artery, with ankle-brachial indices of 0.45 and 0.8, respectively.Before making a decision to perform coronary revascularization, we performed a fractional flow reserve (FFR) procedure on the intermediate stenosis in the LMCA. The FFR was 0.58 with the transducer distal to the LAD stenosis, and 0.73 with the transducer between the LMCA and LAD stenoses.
Case ReportsRajesh Sachdeva, MD