Multicentre multi-device hybrid imaging study of coronary artery disease: results from the EValuation of INtegrated Cardiac Imaging for the Detection and Characterization of Ischaemic Heart Disease (EVINCI) hybrid imaging population

AIMS: Hybrid imaging provides a non-invasive assessment of coronary anatomy and myocardial perfusion. We sought to evaluate the added clinical value of hybrid imaging in a multi-centre multi-vendor setting. METHODS AND RESULTS: Fourteen centres enrolled 252 patients with stable angina and intermediate (20-90%) pre-test likelihood of coronary artery disease (CAD) who underwent myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS), CT coronary angiography (CTCA), and quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) with fractional flow reserve (FFR). Hybrid MPS/CTCA images were obtained by 3D image fusion. Blinded core-lab analyses were performed for CTCA, MPS, QCA and hybrid datasets. Hemodynamically significant CAD was ruled-in non-invasively in the presence of a matched finding (myocardial perfusion defect co-localized with stenosed coronary artery) and ruled-out with normal findings (both CTCA and MPS normal). Overall prevalence of significant CAD on QCA (>70% stenosis or 30-70% with FFR 640.80) was 37%. Of 1004 pathological myocardial segments on MPS, 246 (25%) were reclassified from their standard coronary distribution to another territory by hybrid imaging. In this respect, in 45/252 (18%) patients, hybrid imaging reassigned an entire perfusion defect to another coronary territory, changing the final diagnosis in 42% of the cases. Hybrid imaging allowed non-invasive CAD rule-out in 41%, and rule-in in 24% of patients, with a negative and positive predictive value of 88% and 87%, respectively. CONCLUSION: In patients at intermediate risk of CAD, hybrid imaging allows non-invasive co-localization of myocardial perfusion defects and subtending coronary arteries, impacting clinical decision-making in almost one every five subjects

Validation of a model for identification of patients at intermediate to high risk for complications associated with acute symptomatic pulmonary embolism

BACKGROUND: For patients with acute symptomatic pulmonary embolism (PE), the Bova score classifies their risk for PE-related complications within 30 days after diagnosis. The original Bova score was derived from 2,874 normotensive patients with acute PE who participated in one of six prospective PE studies. METHODS: We retrospectively assessed the validity of the Bova risk model in normotensive patients with acute PE diagnosed in an academic urban ED. Two clinician investigators used baseline data for the model's four prognostic variables to stratify patients into the three Bova risk stages (I-III) for 30-day PE-related complications. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and the \u3ba statistic were used to assess interrater variability. RESULTS: The Bova risk score classified the majority of the cohort of 1,083 patients into the lowest Bova risk stage (stage I, 80%; stage II, 15%; stage III, 5%), The primary end point occurred in 91 of the 1,083 patients (8.4%; 95% CI, 6.7%-10%) during the 30 days after PE diagnosis. Risk stage correlated with the PE-related complication rate (class I, 4.4%; class II, 18%; class III, 42%; ICC, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.92-0.94]; \u3ba statistic, 0.80; P < .001), in-hospital complication rate (class I, 3.7%; class II, 15%; class III, 37%), and 30-day PE-related mortality (class I, 3.1%; class II, 6.8%; class III, 10.5%). CONCLUSIONS: The Bova risk score accurately stratifies normotensive patients with acute PE into stages of increasing risk of PE-related complications that occur within 30 days of PE diagnosis