Treatment of In-Stent Restenosis With Excimer Laser Coronary Angioplasty Versus Rotational Atherectomy Comparative Mechanisms and Results

Background—Atheroablation yields improved clinical results for balloon angioplasty (percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, PTCA) in the treatment of diffuse in-stent restenosis (ISR). Methods and Results—We compared the mechanisms and clinical results of excimer laser coronary angioplasty (ELCA) versus rotational atherectomy (RA), both followed by adjunct PTCA; 119 patients (158 ISR lesions) were treated with ELCA1PTCA and 130 patients (161 ISR lesions) were treated with RA1PTCA. Quantitative coronary angiographic and planar intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) measurements were performed routinely. In addition, volumetric IVUS analysis to compare the mechanisms of lumen enlargement was performed in 28 patients with 30 lesions (16 ELCA1PTCA, 14 RA1PTCA). There were no significant between-group differences in preintervention or final postintervention quantitative coronary angiographic or planar IVUS measurements of luminal dimensions. Angiographic success and major in-hospital complications with the 2 techniques were also similar. Volumetric IVUS analysis showed significantly greater reduction in intimal hyperplasia volume after RA than after ELCA (43614 versus 19610 mm, P,0.001) because of a significantly higher ablation efficiency (90610% versus 76612%, P50.004). However, both interventional strategies had similar long-term clinical outcome; 1-year target lesion revascularization rate was 26% with ELCA1PTCA versus 28% with RA1PTCA (P5NS). Conclusions—Despite certain differences in the mechanisms of lumen enlargement, both ELCA1PTCA and RA1PTCA can be used to treat diffuse ISR with similar clinical results. (Circulation. 2000;101:2484-2489.)