The relationship between vascular-specific epicardial adipose tissue (vEAT) volume and myocardial ischemia measured by fractional flow reserve (FFR) was not well investigated. Patients with typical and atypical chest pain undergoing coronary computed tomographic angiography scan followed by invasive coronary angiography in combination with FFR examination within one month were retrospectively included. EAT volume and CT attenuation was calculated. The patient with FFR ≤ 0.8 in at least one vessel was referred to as functional ischemia. The mean age of all patients was 61.7 ± 8.9 years and 66.7% of patients were male. There was a significant difference for left anterior descending branch (LAD) vEAT volume between patients with and without functional myocardial ischemia (28.7 ± 10.6 cm3 vs. 23.9 ± 8.7 cm3, p = 0.005). After adjusted by cardiac risk factors and CAD-RADS categories in multivariable logistic regression analysis, LAD-vEAT volume ≥ 24.6 cm3 (OR 3.355, 95% CI 1.546-7.281, p = 0.002) remained an independent predictor of functional ischemia. After adding LAD-vEAT volume ≥ 24.6 cm3 to a prediction model composed with cardiac risk factors and CAD-RADS categories, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed significantly improved areas under curve (AUC) for the new model (AUC: 0.795, p = 0.0319) compared with the previous ones. Moreover, the new model revealed significance in net reclassification improvement (NRI: 0.186, p = 0.037). In conclusion, LAD-vEAT volume measurements have incremental predictive performance beyond cardiac risk factors and CAD-RADS categories in identifying significant flow-limit ischemia detected by FFR.
Keywords: Coronary artery disease; Diagnostic performance; Epicardial adipose tissue; Myocardial ischemia.