Intracoronary thrombus assessment with cardiac computed tomography angiography in a deferred stenting strategy: the MATURE prospective study (MSCT to Assess ThrombUs REsolution).

Background: Cardiac computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is precise in noninvasive coronary atherosclerosis characterization but its value in the diagnosis of intracoronary thrombus remains unknown. Therefore, our aim was to evaluate CCTA for intracoronary thrombus and stenosis detection in patients with acute coronary syndromes with high thrombus burden selected for a deferred stenting strategy.

Methods: We systematically performed a CCTA in consecutive patients following a deferred stenting strategy, 24 h before the scheduled repeated coronary angiography including optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging. Intracoronary thrombus and residual stenosis were blindly and independently evaluated by both techniques. Agreement was determined per lesion using the weighted Kappa ( K ) coefficient and absolute intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). A stratified analysis according to OCT-detected thrombus burden was also performed.

Results: Thirty lesions in 28 consecutive patients were analyzed. Concordance between CCTA and repeated coronary angiography in thrombus detection was good ( K  = 0.554; P  < 0.001), but both showed poor agreement with OCT. CCTA needed >11.5% thrombus burden on OCT to obtain adequate diagnostic accuracy. The lesions detected by angiography were more frequently classified as red thrombus (76.5 vs. 33.3%; P  = 0.087) on OCT. CCTA showed an excellent concordance with coronary angiography in diameter measurement (ICC = 0.85; P  < 0.001) and was able to identify all the patients with severe residual stenosis.

Conclusions: Although CCTA showed just a good concordance with angiography in intracoronary thrombus detection, the agreement in residual stenosis was excellent. Thus, in patients with a high-thrombus burden selected for a deferred stenting strategy CCTA may substitute repeat angiography.