Usefulness of intravascular ultrasound-guided histological measurements after stenting in porcine coronary artery

Background: We evaluated the usefulness of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) in the non-uniform distribution of in-stent neointimal hyperplasia, comparing macroscopic measurements with IVUS-guided histomorphometry.

Methods: Coronary stenting was performed in 45 left coronaries of 39 pigs, using 18 Tenax (Biotronik Gmbh and Co., Berlin, Germany), 11 bare Genius (Eurocor, Bonn, Germany), 10 polymer-coated Genius (Eurocor) and six Biodivysio Matrix LO (Biodivysio Ltd, Farnham, Surrey, UK) stents. After 4 weeks, coronary angiography and IVUS with automatic pullback were performed. IVUS images were analysed using three-dimensional analysis (EchoPlaque 2; INDEC Systems Inc., Mountain View, California, USA). The stented segments were formalin fixed, embedded in Technovit 9100 and cut to 4-8 microm thick slides. The most diseased in-stent segment was 4.49 +/- 4.54 mm away from the distal stent edge assessed by IVUS. Sections of these segments were stained for histomorphometry.

Results: A significant correlation was found between IVUS-guided histomorphometry and three-dimensional IVUS measurements of maximal intimal thickness (r = 0.6985, P < 0.005) and area (r = 0.7736, P < 0.001). Macroscopic measurements resulted in comparable maximal intimal thickness (0.83 +/- 0.43 mm compared with 0.81 +/- 0.46 mm) and area (4.44 +/- 1.73 mm2 compared with 3.45 +/- 1.55 mm2) by IVUS and histomorphometry, respectively. Although stent length, diameter, nominal inflation pressure and time and injury score did not differ between the stents, bare Genius stents resulted in significant smaller neointimal volume compared to Tenax, polymer-coated Genius and Biodivysio stents: 24.46 +/- 4.98 mm3 compared with 59.18 +/- 26.41, 60.46 +/- 10.03 and 61.41 +/- 16.27 mm3, respectively (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: The significant correlation between IVUS-guided histomorphometry and IVUS measurements confirms the usefulness of IVUS in evaluation of experimental in-stent restenosis. Implantation of bare Genius stents resulted in significant lower neointimal hyperplasia compared to Tenax, polymer-coated Genius or phosphorylcholine-coated Biodivysio stents.