Intracoronary Electrocardiogram Detects Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction and Ischemia in Patients with No Obstructive Coronary Arteries Disease.

BACKGROUND: Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction (CMD) is the leading cause of ischemia with No Obstructive Coronary Arteries Disease (INOCA) disease. Diagnosis of CMD relies on surrogate physiological indices without objective proof of ischemia.

OBJECTIVES: Intracoronary electrocardiogram (icECG) derived hyperemic indices may accurately and objectively detect CMD and reversible ischemia in related territory.

METHODS: INOCA patients with proven ischemia by myocardial perfusion scan (MPS) and completely normal coronary arteries underwent simultaneous intracoronary electrophysiological (icECG) and physiological (Intracoronary Doppler) assessment in all three coronary arteries during rest and under adenosine induced hyperemia.

RESULTS: 60 vessels in 21 patients were included in the final analysis. All patients had at least one vessel with abnormal CFR. 41 vessels had CMD (CFR<2.5), of which 26 had increased microvascular resistance (Structural CMD, HMR >1.9 mmHg.cm-1 .s) and 15 vessels had CMD (CFR<2.5) with normal microvascular resistance (Functional CMD, HMR <=1.9 mmHg.cm-1 .s). Only one-third of the patients (n=7) had impaired CFR <2.5 in all three epicardial arteries. Absolute ST shift between hyperemia and rest (∆ST) has shown the best diagnostic performance for ischemia (Cut-off 0.10 mV, Sensitivity: 95% Specificity 72%, Accuracy 80% AUC: 0.860) outperforming physiological indices (CFR: 0.623 and HMR: 0.653 DeLong's test p = 0.0002).

CONCLUSIONS: In INOCA patients, CMD involves coronary artery territories heterogeneously. icECG can accurately detect CMD causing perfusion abnormalities in patients with INOCA outperforming physiological CMD markers, by demonstrating actual ischemia instead of predicting the likelihood of inducible ischemia based on violated surrogate thresholds of blunted flow reserve or increased minimum microvascular resistance.

CONDENSED ABSTRACT: In 21 INOCA patients with coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD) and myocardial perfusion scan proved ischemia, hyperemic indices of intracoronary electrocardiogram (icECG) have accurately detected vessel-specific CMD and resulting perfusion abnormalities & ischemia, outperforming invasive hemodynamic indices. Absolute ST shift between hyperemia and rest (∆ST) has shown the best classification performance for ischemia in no Obstructive Coronary Arteries (AUC: 0.860) outperforming Doppler derived CMD indices (CFR: 0.623 and HMR: 0.653 DeLong's test p = 0.0002).icECG can be used to diagnose CMD causing perfusion defects by demonstrating actual reversible ischemia at vessel-level during the initial CAG session, obviating the need for further costly ischemia tests.

CLINICALTRIALS: GOV: NCT05471739.