Routine use of an orbital atherectomy device to remove calcium from severely blocked coronary arteries before patients undergo cardiac stenting procedures does not improve outcomes, a Mount Sinai-led study has found. The results of the ECLIPSE study were announced during a late-breaking trial presentation at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Annual Meeting on Tuesday, October 29. This is the first large-scale study to study this specific device in severely calcified lesions, and the results support reserving its use for extreme cases.
"Operators across the United States currently have different thresholds for using atherectomy or other advanced lesion preparation techniques when treating severely calcified lesions. While these devices are essential to treat the most extreme cases prior to implanting a stent, it was unknown before this study whether their routine upfront use in patients with severely calcified lesions that are less than extreme would safely improve outcomes after drug-eluting stent implantation ," says study chair Gregg W. Stone, MD, Director of Academic Affairs for the Mount Sinai Health System and Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), and Population Health Science and Policy, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
"The large-scale, multicenter ECLIPSE trial has shown that the routine use of orbital atherectomy did not lead to greater stent expansion or improve one-year patient outcomes compared to routine balloon angioplasty prior to stent.
