Confirmation of the Intracoronary Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Threshold of Lipid-Rich Plaques That Underlie ST-Segment-Elevation Myocardial Infarction.

Objective: In a previous exploratory analysis, intracoronary near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) found the majority of culprit lesions in ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) to contain a maximum lipid core burden index in 4 mm (maxLCBI4mm) of >400. This initial study was limited by a small sample size, enrollment at a single center, and post hoc selection of the maxLCBI4mm ≥400 threshold. This study was designed a priori to substantiate the ability of NIRS to discriminate STEMI culprit from nonculprit segments and to confirm the performance of the maxLCBI4mm ≥400 threshold.

Approach And Results: At 2 centers in the United States and Sweden, 75 STEMI patients underwent intracoronary NIRS imaging after establishing thrombolysis in myocardial infarction 3 flow, but before stenting. Blinded core laboratory analysis defined the culprit segment as the 10-mm segment distal to the proximal angiographic culprit margin. The remaining vessel was divided into contiguous 10-mm nonculprit segments. The maxLCBI4mm of culprit segments (median [interquartile range]: 543 [273-756]) was 4.4-fold greater than nonculprit segments (median [interquartile range]: 123 [0-307]; P<0.001). Receiver-operating characteristic analysis demonstrated that maxLCBI4mm differentiated culprit from nonculprit segments with high accuracy (c-statistic=0.83; P<0.001). A threshold maxLCBI4mm ≥400 identified STEMI culprit segments with a sensitivity of 64% and specificity of 85%.

Conclusions: This study substantiates the ability of NIRS to accurately differentiate STEMI culprit from nonculprit segments and confirms that a threshold maxLCBI4mm ≥400 is detected by NIRS in the majority of STEMI culprits.