Cardiovascular News
Background: Non-invasive fractional flow reserve (NiFFR) is an emerging method for evaluating the functional significance of a coronary lesion
during diagnostic coronary angiography (CAG). The method relies on the
computational flow dynamics and the 3D reconstruction of the vessel extracted from CAG. In the present study, we sought to evaluate the diagnostic performance and applicability of 2D-based NiFFR.
Methods: In this prospective observational study, we evaluated 2D-based
NiFFR in 279 candidates for invasive CAG and invasive FFR. NiFFR was
calculated via 2 methods: variable NiFFR, in which the contrast transport
time was extracted from the angiographic view, and fixed NiFFR, in which
a prespecified frame count was applied.
Results: The final analysis was performed on 245 patients (250 lesions).
Variable NiFFR had an area under the receiver operating characteristic
curve of 81.5%, an accuracy of 80.0%, a sensitivity of 82.2%, a specificity of 82.2%, a negative predictive value of 91.4%, and a positive predictive value of 63.6%. The mean difference between FFR and NiFFR was
−0.0244 ±0.0616 (P≤0.0001). A pressure wire-free hybrid strategy was
possible in 68.8% of our population with variable NiFFR.
Conclusions: Our 2D-based NiFFR yielded results comparable to those
derived from 3D-based software. Our findings should, however, be confirmed in larger trials.
