How to guide PCI?: A network meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Traditional coronary angiography (CA) as a main technique has been used to determine the coronary artery anatomy and guide percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). We mainly focused on whether the new techniques could improve the patients’ mortality, major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs), and myocardial infarction. METHODS: For the network meta-analysis, we searched the trials of different PCI guidances from MEDLINE, Current Contents Connect, Google Scholar, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PubMed, Science Direct, and Web of Science. The last search date was December 10, 2018. RESULTS: The analyses of all results found that there was no significant difference in mortality among the groups. Randomized clinical trials (RCT) analysis showed that intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI was significantly superior to CA, fractional flow reserve, instantaneous wave-free ratio, optical coherence tomography. However, CA, fractional flow reserve, instantaneous wave-free ratio, and optical coherence tomography showed no difference in reducing mortality. The analyses of all results found that there was no significant difference in the incidence of MACEs among the groups. RCTs analysis showed that IVUS-guided PCI was significantly superior to CA, but there was no significant difference among the other groups. The analyses of all results or RCTs showed that there was no significant difference in myocardial infarction incidence among the groups. CONCLUSION: IVUS-guided PCI is an effective method to decrease all-cause death MACEs.