Postocclusional Hyperemia for Fractional Flow Reserve After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.

Background: Postocclusional hyperemia caused by balloon occlusion is a potential alternative method of inducing hyperemia for measuring post-percutaneous coronary intervention fractional flow reserve (FFR). The aim of this study was to investigate postocclusional hyperemia as a method of inducing hyperemia.

Methods And Results: FFR measured by postocclusional hyperemia (FFRoccl) caused by balloon occlusion after percutaneous coronary intervention was compared with FFR measured by drug-induced hyperemia (FFR measured by intravenous ATP; and FFR measured by intracoronary papaverine injection [FFRpap]) in 98 lesions from 98 patients. The hyperemia duration was also measured for FFRoccl and FFRpap. The correlation coefficient between FFRoccl, FFR measured by intravenous ATP (=0.973; <0.01), and FFRpap (=0.975; <0.01) showed almost identical values to those obtained for the correlation coefficient between FFR measured by intravenous ATP and FFRpap (=0.967; <0.01). No clear difference was observed on Bland-Altman analysis. Hyperemia duration was significantly longer with FFRoccl than with FFRpap (70±22 versus 51±25 s; <0.01).

Conclusions: Strong correlations were found between FFRoccl and FFR measured by intravenous ATP and FFRoccl and FFRpap. Hyperemia caused by FFRoccl was significantly longer than that caused by FFRpap.