Long-term impact of intravascular ultrasound-guidance for percutaneous coronary intervention on unprotected left main. The IMPACTUS-LM, an observational, multicentric study

Introduction: The potential benefit on long term outcomes of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) on Unprotected Left Main (ULM) driven by IntraVascular UltraSound (IVUS) remains to be defined. Methods: IMPACTUS LM-PCI is an observational, multicenter study that enrolled consecutive patients with ULM disease undergoing coronary angioplasty in 13 European high-volume centers from January 2002 to December 2015. Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events (MACEs) a composite of cardiovascular (CV) death, target vessel revascularization (TVR) and myocardial infarction (MI) were the primary endpoints, while its single components along with all cause death the secondary ones. Results: 627 patients with ULM disease were enrolled, 213 patients (34%) underwent IVUS-guided PCI while 414 (66%) angioguided PCI. Patients in the two cohorts had similar prevalence of risk factors except for active smoking and clinical presentation. During a median follow-up of 7.5 years, 47 (22%) patients in the IVUS group and 211 (51%) in the angio-guided group underwent the primary endpoint (HR 0.42; 95% CI [0.31–0.58] p < 0.001). After multivariate adjustment, IVUS was significantly associated with a reduced incidence of the primary endpoint (adj HR 0.39; 95% CI [0.23–0.64], p < 0.001), mainly driven by a reduction of TVR (ad HR 0.30, 95% CI [0.15–0.62], p = 0.001) and of all-cause death (adj HR 0.47, 95% CI [0.28–0.82], p = 0.008). IVUS use, age, diabetes, side branch stenosis, DES and creatinine at admission were independent predictors of MACE. Conclusions: In patients undergoing ULM PCI, the use of IVUS was associated with a reduced risk at long-term follow-up of MACE, all-cause death and subsequent revascularization.