Intravascular Ultrasound-Guided Versus Angiography-Guided Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) provide intra-procedural guidance in optimizing percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) and have been shown to improve clinical outcomes in stent implantation. However, current data on the benefit of IVUS during PCI in ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients is mixed. We performed meta-analysis pooling available data assessing IVUS-guided versus angiography-guided PCI in STEMI patients.

METHODS: We conducted a systematic search on PubMed and Embase for studies comparing IVUS versus angiography guided PCI in STEMI. Mantel-Haenszel random effects model was used to calculate risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for outcomes of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), death, myocardial infarction (MI), target vessel revascularization (TVR), stent thrombosis (ST) and in-hospital mortality.

RESULTS: A total of 8 studies including 336,649 individuals presenting with STEMI were included for the meta-analysis. Follow-up ranged from 11 to 60 months. We found significant association between IVUS-guided PCI with lower risk for MACE (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.76-0.90) compared with angiography-guided PCI. We also found significant association between IVUS-guided PCI with lower risk for death, MI, TVR and in-hospital mortality but not ST.

CONCLUSION: In our meta-analysis, IVUS-guided compared with angiography-guided PCI was associated with improved long-term and short-term clinical outcomes in STEMI patients.