Abstract
BACKGROUND: There is a substantial risk of slow flow during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for the culprit lesion in acute myocardial infarction (AMI), which can lead to adverse outcomes. We hypothesized that single-step long balloon inflation during stent deployment was associated with a more favorable final Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) flow grade. This retrospective study aimed to compare both the final TIMI flow grade and the delta TIMI flow grade in intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI for AMI between patients with long balloon inflation and those with conventional inflation. METHODS AND RESULTS: Long inflation was defined as single-step inflation ≥60 s at stent deployment. The primary endpoints were achievement of the final TIMI flow grade 3 and the delta TIMI flow grade, defined as the difference between the initial and final grades. We analyzed 336 AMI patients with attenuation plaque on IVUS, dividing them into a long inflation group (n=50) and a conventional inflation group (n=286). Despite a significantly higher TIMI thrombus grade in the long inflation group (P<0.001), the rate of the final TIMI 3 flow was similar (90% vs. 88.5%; P=1.00). However, the delta TIMI flow grade was significantly greater in the long inflation group (P=0.028). CONCLUSIONS: Single-step long balloon inflation may be a simple and feasible method to achieve optimal final TIMI flow in IVUS-guided PCI for AMI.