Short-term outcome of percutaneous coronary intervention with directional coronary atherectomy followed by drug-coated balloon: a preliminary report

Directional coronary atherectomy (DCA) is a unique technique used in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) which involves the removal of plaque from the coronary artery. Treatment with a drug-coated balloon (DCB) appears to be effective, especially when a predilatation of the lesion is performed appropriately. We hypothesize that the combination therapy of DCA with DCB is an effective strategy in PCI. PCI with DCA followed by DCB was performed for 23 patients from December 2014 to April 2017. All DCA procedures were performed under the guidance of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) findings and all procedures were successfully performed without incurring major complications such as a coronary perforation. Plaque area (PA) was reduced from 77.3 ± 10.4% at baseline to 50.9 ± 9.2% after DCA and luminal cross-sectional area (CSA) after PCI was enlarged from 3.6 ± 1.8 to 9.3 ± 3.3 mm2. Follow-up coronary angiography (CAG) performed at 6–10 months showed no cases having incurred restenosis. Plaque area at follow-up CAG was 52.0 ± 8.5% and luminal CSA was 9.5 ± 2.1 mm2. There were no cases undergoing target vessel revascularization (TVR) and target lesion revascularization (TLR) during the follow-up periods. PCI with DCA followed by DCB might be an effective strategy for de novo lesions.