Multi-slice Computed Tomography Assessment of Everolimus-Eluting Absorb Bioresorbable Scaffold in Comparison with Metallic Drug-Eluting Stents from the ABSORB Japan randomized Trial.

AIMS: Blooming artifacts limit accurate coronary assessment by multi-slice computed tomography (MSCT) in metallic stents. We sought to investigate whether bioresorbable vascular scaffold (BVS) could be better assessed by MSCT. Methods and Results: Among 400 patients in the randomized ABSORB Japan trial, a pre-specified MSCT sub-study was performed in 98 patients (103 lesions) in the BVS arm and 49 patients (49 lesions) in the cobalt chromium everolimus-eluting stent (CoCr-EES) arm at 13-month prior to follow-up angiography. The assessability of BVS by MSCT was superior to that of CoCr-EES (94% versus 67%, P<0.001). Blooming artifacts were the main reason CoCr-EES could not be analyzed (29%), while marker artifacts precluded analysis in 1.1% of BVS. In the CoCr-EES arm, non-assessable lesions were more prevalent in segments with 2.5 mm stents compared to 3.0 or 3.5 mm stents (75.0% versus 23.5%, P=0.01), while in the BVS arm, image quality was good regardless of the diameter. The in-device minimal lumen diameter by MSCT was smaller than that by QCA with a difference of 0.61 mm in the CoCr-EES arm, vs. only 0.026 mm in the BVS arm.

CONCLUSIONS: The feasibility of MSCT assessment of BVS-treated lesions was greater than that for lesions with CoCr-EES.