Myocardial fibrosis predicts adverse outcome after MitraClip implantation.

BACKGROUND: High-risk patients with mitral regurgitation (MR) may be treated by a percutaneous mitral valve repair with the MitraClip, but identification of patients who may benefit remains difficult. We aimed to determine whether myocardial fibrosis predicts outcome in MR patients undergoing MitraClip implantation and is beneficial in clinical decision making. METHODS: Preprocedural to the MitraClip implantation, myocardial fibrosis was analyzed with cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) through late gadolinium enhancement. The CMR data were core-lab adjudicated measured before the MitraClip implantation. Adverse outcome was defined as New York Heart Association (NYHA) class III or IV after 1 month or death within 1 month after the MitraClip implantation. RESULTS: In total, 23 patients underwent preprocedural CMR, mean age 80 ± 9 years, 45% male, 64% atrial fibrillation and 73% NYHA class III or IV at baseline. Myocardial fibrosis was present in 55% of the patients with degenerative MR and in 64% of the patients with functional MR. An adverse outcome occurred in 69% of the patients with myocardial fibrosis and in 11% of the patients without myocardial fibrosis (P = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Our hypothesis-generating study showed that the presence of myocardial fibrosis predicts adverse outcome in patients undergoing MitraClip implantation. After confirmation with larger sample size, identification of myocardial fibrosis might contribute to assess prognosis and to clinical decision making.

CT determined psoas muscle area predicts mortality in women undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to assess the predictive value of PMA measurement for mortality. BACKGROUND: Current surgical risk stratification have limited predictive value in the transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) population. In TAVI workup, a CT scan is routinely performed but body composition is not analyzed. Psoas muscle area (PMA) reflects a patient's global muscle mass and accordingly PMA might serve as a quantifiable frailty measure. METHODS: Multi-slice computed tomography scans (between 2010 and 2016) of 583 consecutive TAVI patients were reviewed. Patients were divided into equal sex-specific tertiles (low, mid, and high) according to an indexed PMA. Hazard ratios (HR) and their confidence intervals (CI) were determined for cardiac and all-cause mortality after TAVI. RESULTS: Low iPMA was associated with cardiac and all-cause mortality in females. One-year adjusted cardiac mortality HR in females for mid-iPMA and high-iPMA were 0.14 [95%CI, 0.05-0.45] and 0.40 [95%CI, 0.15-0.97], respectively. Similar effects were observed for 30-day and 2-years cardiac and all-cause mortality. In females, adding iPMA to surgical risk scores improved the predictive value for 1-year mortality. C-statistics changed from 0.63 [CI = 0.54-0.73] to 0.67 [CI: 0.58-0.75] for EuroSCORE II and from 0.67 [CI: 0.59-0.77] to 0.72 [CI: 0.63-0.80] for STS-PROM. CONCLUSIONS: Particularly in females, low iPMA is independently associated with an higher all-cause and cardiac mortality. Prospective studies should confirm whether PMA or other body composition parameters should be extracted automatically from CT-scans to include in clinical decision making and outcome prediction for TAVI.

A phantom study for the comparison of different brands of computed tomography scanners and software packages for endovascular aneurysm repair sizing and planning.

Objectives Correct sizing of endoprostheses used for the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms is important to prevent endoleaks and migration. Sizing requires several steps and each step introduces a possible sizing error. The goal of this study was to investigate the magnitude of these errors compared to the golden standard: a vessel phantom. This study focuses on the errors in sizing with three different brands of computed tomography angiography scanners in combination with three reconstruction software packages. Methods Three phantoms with a different diameter, altitude and azimuth were scanned with three computed tomography scanners: Toshiba Aquilion 64-slice, Philips Brilliance iCT 256-slice and Siemens Somatom Sensation 64-slice. The phantom diameters were determined in the stretched view after central lumen line reconstruction by three observers using Simbionix PROcedure Rehearsal Studio, 3mensio and TeraRecon planning software. The observers, all novices in sizing endoprostheses using planning software, measured 108 slices each. Two senior vascular surgeons set the tolerated error margin of sizing on ±1.0 mm. Results In total, 11.3% of the measurements (73/648) were outside the set margins of ±1.0 mm from the phantom diameter, with significant differences between the scanner types (14.8%, 12.1%, 6.9% for the Siemens scanner, Philips scanner and Toshiba scanner, respectively, p-value = 0.032), but not between the software packages (8.3%, 11.1%, 14.4%, p-value = 0.141) or the observers (10.6%, 9.7%, 13.4%, p-value = 0.448). Conclusions It can be concluded that the errors in sizing were independent of the used software packages, but the phantoms scanned with Siemens scanner were significantly more measured incorrectly than the phantoms scanned with the Toshiba scanner. Consequently, awareness on the type of computed tomography scanner and computed tomography scanner setting is necessary, especially in complex abdominal aortic aneurysms sizing for fenestrated or branched endovascular aneurysm repair if appropriate the sizing is of upmost importance.

Validation of the Simbionix PROcedure Rehearsal Studio sizing module: A comparison of software for endovascular aneurysm repair sizing and planning.

An important determinant of successful endovascular aortic aneurysm repair is proper sizing of the dimensions of the aortic-iliac vessels. The goal of the present study was to determine the concurrent validity, a method for comparison of test scores, for EVAR sizing and planning of the recently introduced Simbionix PROcedure Rehearsal Studio (PRORS). Seven vascular specialists analyzed anonymized computed tomography angiography scans of 70 patients with an infrarenal aneurysm of the abdominal aorta, using three different sizing software packages Simbionix PRORS (Simbionix USA Corp., Cleveland, OH, USA), 3mensio (Pie Medical Imaging BV, Maastricht, The Netherlands), and TeraRecon (Aquarius, Foster City, CA, USA). The following measurements were included in the protocol: diameter 1 mm below the most distal main renal artery, diameter 15 mm below the lowest renal artery, maximum aneurysm diameter, and length from the most distal renal artery to the left iliac artery bifurcation. Averaged over the locations, the intraclass correlation coefficient is 0.83 for Simbionix versus 3mensio, 0.81 for Simbionix versus TeraRecon, and 0.86 for 3mensio versus TeraRecon. It can be concluded that the Simbionix sizing software is as precise as two other validated and commercially available software packages.

MitraClip®: Two Weeks after Implantation.

A 73-year-old male received a percutaneous mitral valve repair with a MitraClip to treat severe (grade IV) symptomatic mitral regurgitation (MR). The MitraClip® procedure reduced the MR to grade I, but the patient died 14 days post-procedurally due to a pneumosepsis. Histological analysis of the MitraClip mesh covering showed a chronic inflammatory reaction with an abundance of multinucleated giant cells. Remarkably, signs of early onset clip-coverage were found, indicated by the presence of a few scattered myofibroblasts.

Comparison of Outcome After Percutaneous Mitral Valve Repair With the MitraClip in Patients With Versus Without Atrial Fibrillation.

Percutaneous mitral valve repair with the MitraClip is an established treatment for patients with mitral regurgitation (MR) who are inoperable or at high risk for surgery. Atrial Fibrillation (AF) frequently coincides with MR, but only scarce data of the influence of AF on outcome after MitraClip is available. The aim of the current study was to compare the clinical outcome after MitraClip treatment in patients with versus without atrial fibrillation. Between January 2009 and January 2016, all consecutive patients treated with a MitraClip in 5 Dutch centers were included. Outcome measures were survival, symptoms, MR grade, and stroke incidence. In total, 618 patients were treated with a MitraClip. Patients with AF were older, had higher N-terminal B-type natriuretic peptide levels, more tricuspid regurgitation, less often coronary artery disease and a better left ventricular function. Survival of patients treated with the MitraClip was similar for patients with AF (82%) and without AF (non-AF; 85%) after 1 year (p = 0.30), but significantly different after 5-year follow-up (AF 34%; non-AF 47%; p = 0.006). After 1 month, 64% of the patients with AF were in New York Heart Association class I or II, in contrast to 77% of the patients without AF (p = 0.001). The stroke incidence appeared not to be significantly different (AF 1.8%; non-AF 1.0%; p = 0.40). In conclusion, patients with AF had similar 1-year survival, MR reduction, and stroke incidence compared with non-AF patients. However, MitraClip patients with AF had reduced long-term survival and remained more symptomatic compared with those without AF.

Prostate cancer diagnosis: the feasibility of needle-based optical coherence tomography.

The objective of this study is to demonstrate the feasibility of needle-based optical coherence tomography (OCT) and functional analysis of OCT data along the full pullback trajectory of the OCT measurement in the prostate, correlated with pathology. OCT images were recorded using a commercially available C7-XR™ OCT Intravascular Imaging System interfaced to a C7 Dragonfly™ intravascular 0.9-mm-diameter imaging probe. A computer program was constructed for automated image attenuation analysis. First, calibration of the OCT system for both the point spread function and the system roll-off was achieved by measurement of the OCT signal attenuation from an extremely weakly scattering medium (Intralipid® 0.0005 volume%). Second, the data were arranged in 31 radial wedges (pie slices) per circular segments consisting of 16 A-scans per wedge and 5 axial B-scans, resulting in an average A-scan per wedge. Third, the decay of the OCT signal is analyzed over 50 pixels ([Formula: see text]) in depth, starting from the first found maximum data point. Fourth, for visualization, the data were grouped with a corresponding color representing a specific [Formula: see text] range according to their attenuation coefficient. Finally, the analyses were compared to histopathology. To ensure that each single use sterile imaging probe is comparable to the measurements of the other imaging probes, the probe-to-probe variations were analyzed by measuring attenuation coefficients of 0.03, 6.5, 11.4, 17, and 22.7 volume% Intralipid®. Experiments were repeated five times per probe for four probes. Inter- and intraprobe variation in the measured attenuation of Intralipid samples with scattering properties similar to that of the prostate was [Formula: see text] of the mean values. Mean attenuation coefficients in the prostate were [Formula: see text] for parts of the tissue that were classified as benign (SD: [Formula: see text], minimum: [Formula: see text], maximum: [Formula: see text]) and [Formula: see text] for parts of tissue that were classified as malignant (SD: [Formula: see text], minimum: [Formula: see text], maximum: [Formula: see text]). In benign areas, the tissue looked homogeneous, whereas in malignant areas, small glandular structures were seen. However, not all areas in which a high attenuation coefficient became apparent corresponded to areas of prostate cancer. This paper describes the first in-tissue needle-based OCT imaging and three-dimensional optical attenuation analysis of prostate tissue that indicates a correlation with pathology. Fully automated attenuation coefficient analysis was performed at 1300 nm over the full pullback. Correlation with pathology was achieved by coregistration of three-dimensional (3-D) OCT attenuation maps with 3-D pathology of the prostate. This may contribute to the current challenge of prostate imaging and the rising interest in focal therapy for reduction of side effects occurring with current therapies.