Functional assessment of intracoronary Doppler: the Doppler Endpoints Balloon Angioplasty Trial Europe (DEBATE) study: preliminary results

Introduction The limitations of angiography have prompted inves­ tigators to use alternative methods for the functional assessment of angioplasty results. Various digital angiographic techniques and Doppler catheters were introduced and tested. However, only with the introduction of a Doppler angioplasty guide wire has the continuous measurement of blood flow velocity during a routine angioplasty procedure become possible. The main advantage of this system is the possibility of positioning the guide wire distal to the stenosis and reliably assessing the flow impairment induced by the stenosis under treatment. The veloc­ ity measurements can be repeated after angioplasty leaving the guide wire in place, distal to the steno­sis, during dilatation. A normalization of flow veloc­ ity parameters after successful angioplasty will indicate that an adequate lumen enlargement has been achieved and a normal vascular conductance restored. The results of small-sized single-center studies have shown an improvement of the flow velocity indices in most cases after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). Up to now, however, no appropriately sized prospective studies have assessed the value of flow velocity indices in predicting immediate complications and recurrence of symptoms after PTCA