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January 19, 2009 -- 7:20pm EST When Less is More: Stents, That Is Yes, the FAME study did show that when FFR (Fractional Flow Reserve) was used routinely to measure whether or not a coronary lesion was ischemic, less stents were implanted per patient, and the resulting decrease in major cardiac events was significant. But stenting, as an important therapy, was never called into question. The patient population for the FAME study consisted of patients with multivessel disease -- and 94% of these patients had stents implanted. Yes, that's 94%! It's just that the number of stents per patient was lower, on the average: two stents instead of three.
He characterized the FAME results as a refinement of stenting, and that they actually may expand the use of the procedure as well. You can read Angioplasty.Org's exclusive interview with Dr. Pijls here. |
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fact Nico Pijls, the co-principal investigator for FAME, told Angioplasty.Org
that, rather than reduce the total number of stents used, the use
of FFR could easily expand the patient population that could benefit
by stents. For example,
patients with
multiple blockages might only have only 2 that are measured as ischemic,
and
thus would be candidates for stenting, rather than surgery.