Characteristics of abnormal post-stent optical coherence tomography findings in hemodialysis patients

Aim Clinical outcomes after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in hemodialysis (HD) patients are significantly worse than those in non-HD patients. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a high resolution imaging modality and provides a detailed assessment of post-interventional abnormal findings that influence worse clinical outcomes. However, little is known about the abnormal post-stent OCT findings in HD patients. Therefore, in this study, we compared the abnormal post-stent OCT findings between HD and non-HD patients. Methods One hundred thirty-nine consecutive OCT guided PCI (21 lesions in HD patients and 118 lesions in non-HD patients) were enrolled. We compared the post-stent OCT findings, including the edge dissections, under expansion index (minimum stent area/mean reference area), and stent eccentricity index (minimum stent diameter/maximum stent diameter) between HD and non-HD patients. We also compared the device-oriented clinical events (DoCEs) at 8 months of follow up. Results There was a significantly higher prevalence of distal edge dissections (16.7% vs. 2.8%, P = 0.011) in HD patients. HD patients had a significantly lower under expansion index (0.76 +/- 0.21 vs. 0.85 +/- 0.14, P = 0.029) and stent eccentricity index (0.82 +/- 0.09 vs. 0.88 +/- 0.18, P = 0.018). The cumulative rate of DoCEs was significantly higher in the HD patients (23.8% vs. 5.2%, P = 0.013). Conclusions A higher prevalence of distal edge dissections, under expansion and stent eccentricity were detected by the detailed OCT findings in HD patients.