Interventional Cardiologists at St. Francis Hospital Lead Research Published in The New England Journal of Medicine

Interventional cardiologists at Catholic Health’s St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center®  announced new research examining how optical coherence tomography (OCT)-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), compares with standard treatment using angiography-guided PCI. 
 
Presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2023 (ESC), and published on August 27, 2023 in The New England Journal of Medicine, the ILUMIEN IV trial found intravascular coronary imaging (OCT-guided PCI) leads to a larger minimum stent area but does not reduce the two-year rate of target-vessel failure compared with angiography-guided PCI. It also shows that with OCT-guided PCI there are fewer complications in the cardiac catheterization lab for patients being treated for coronary artery disease. St. Francis Hospital was the highest enrolling site in the study. 
 
According to  Ziad Ali, MD, DPhil,  director of the DeMatteis Cardiovascular Research Institute at St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center®  and the co-principal investigator and author of this global study, OCT-guided PCI led to a larger minimum stent area, enhanced the safety of the PCI procedure and resulted in a nearly two-thirds reduction in stent thrombosis during two-year follow-up. “This means that there were fewer complications with OCT guidance, leading to enhanced safety of the PCI procedure, and reduced the potential of stent thrombosis (blood clots),” said Dr. Ali.
 
However, he said the findings also demonstrated that OCT guidance did not reduce the two-year rate of target-vessel failure compared with angiography-guided PCI because of a low and nearly identical rate of target-vessel revascularization in the OCT-guided and angiography-guided PCI arms.  These results may have been impacted by the COVID pandemic when access to care was limited and there was reluctance to visit healthcare facilities. 
 
The results are based on the treatment of 2,487 patients, 1,233 of whom received OCT-guided PCI and 1,254 received angiography-guided PCI. The mean age of participants was 65.6 years and 22.6% were women, according to the authors.
 
“Enormous advances are being made in the field of interventional cardiology driven by 3-dimensional intracoronary imaging,” said Richard Shlofmitz, MD, Chairman of Cardiology and site principal investigator at St. Francis Hospital. “That’s what our interventional cardiologists use at St. Francis Heart Center and that’s what’s making such a dramatic difference for patients being treated for coronary artery disease.”  
 
President of St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center® Charles Lucore, MD, adds, “The cardiologists at St. Francis are continually expanding and improving the treatment options for our cardiac patients. Our physicians are far ahead of the curve in the use of highly sophisticated technologies to treat and care for patients suffering from heart disease. Our expertise extends from St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn to each of our St. Francis Heart Center locations across the Catholic Health system.”
 
The award-winning cardiovascular services offered by St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center® are available to patients throughout Long Island at fellow Catholic Health hospitals, including Good Samaritan University Hospital, Mercy Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital, and St. Catherine of Siena Hospital. In 2023, Catholic Health’s St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center® was awarded the nationally recognized  HeartCARE Center™ designation by The American College of Cardiology (ACC)—the only ACC HeartCARE™ Center designation in our region, including the five boroughs of New York City, Long Island and Westchester.   
 
St. Francis Hospital has received numerous accolades for the services they provide, including a five-star rating from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, as well as 21 “A” Hospital Safety Grades from The Leapfrog Group. St. Francis Hospital is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nation’s best hospitals for Cardiology, Heart & Vascular Surgery, as well as seven additional adult specialties.  
 
Learn more about the nationally recognized cardiac catheterization services offered by St. Francis Hospital.