Choice of Intracoronary Imaging: When to Use Intravascular Ultrasound or Optical Coherence Tomography

Intracoronary imaging has the capability of accurately measuring vessel and stenosis dimensions, assessing vessel integrity, characterising lesion morphology and guiding optimal percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Coronary angiography used to detect and assess coronary stenosis severity has limitations. The 2D nature of fluoroscopic imaging provides lumen profile only and the assessment of coronary stenosis by visual estimation is subjective and prone to error. Performing PCI based on coronary angiography alone is inadequate for determining key metrics of the vessel such as dimension, extent of disease, and plaque distribution and composition. The advent of intracoronary imaging has offset the limitations of angiography and has shifted the paradigm to allow a detailed, objective appreciation of disease extent and morphology, vessel diameter, stent size and deployment and healing after PCI. It has become an essential tool in complex PCI, including rotational atherectomy, in follow-up of novel drug-eluting stent platforms and understanding the pathophysiology of stent failure after PCI (e.g. following stent thrombosis or in-stent restenosis). In this review we look at the two currently available and commonly used intracoronary imaging tools – intravascular ultrasound and optical coherence tomography – and the merits of each.