Abstract
The insertion of intra-coronary stents to treat coronary stenoses is an established treatment for coronary artery disease. However, it is increasingly accepted that not every coronary stenosis needs stenting. The need to isolate those stenoses that need stenting from those that don’t has led to the development of clinical tools that attempt to ascertain the haemodynamic significance of the stenosis.
This lecture will detail the phasic intra-coronary pressure–flow velocity relationship in patients with coronary artery disease, specifically in relation to coronary stenosis assessment and how this has led to the development of a new clinical tool that has been adopted in over 2000 hospitals globally. Finally, the potential applicability of such phasic analysis to new areas within interventional cardiology will also be explored.