Potential value of saline-induced Pd/Pa ratio in patients with coronary artery stenosis

BackgroundFractional flow reserve (FFR) is the current gold standard for identifying myocardial ischemia in individuals with coronary artery stenosis. However, FFR is not penetrated as much worldwide due to time consumption, costs associated with adenosine, FFR-related discomfort, and complications. Resting physiological indexes may be widely accepted alternatives to FFR, while the discrepancies with FFR were found in up to 20% of lesions. The saline-induced Pd/Pa ratio (SPR) is a new simplified option for evaluating coronary stenosis. However, the clinical implication of SPR remains unclear.ObjectivesIn the present study, we aimed to compare the accuracies of SPR and resting full-cycle ratio (RFR) and to investigate the incremental value of SPR in clinical practice.MethodsIn this multicenter prospective study, 112 coronary lesions (105 patients) were evaluated by SPR, RFR, and FFR.ResultsThe overall median age was 71 years, and 84.8% were men. SPR was correlated more strongly with FFR than with RFR (r = 0.874 vs. 0.713, respectively; p < 0.001). Using FFR < 0.80 as the reference standard variable, the area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve for SPR was superior to that of RFR (0.932 vs. 0.840, respectively; p = 0.009).ConclusionSaline-induced Pd/Pa ratio predicted FFR more accurately than RFR. SPR could be an alternative method for evaluating coronary artery stenosis and further investigation including elucidation of the mechanism of SPR is needed (225 words)

Droplet Motion Control on Dynamically Hydrophobic Patterned Surfaces as Multifunctional Liquid Manipulators

In this letter, we introduce a novel liquid manipulation strategy to design dynamically hydrophobic and statically hydrophobic/hydrophilic patterned surfaces using an “omniphobicity”-based technique. The surfaces guide the sliding direction of a droplet in the presence of a statically hydrophilic area where the droplet does not stick on the transport path significantly enhancing the fluidic system transport efficiency. The concept of dynamically hydrophobic and statically hydrophobic/hydrophilic patterned surfaces in conjunction with omniphobic patterning techniques having surface multifunctionality, we believe, has potential not only for fluidic applications but also for future material engineering development