Predominant microvessel proliferation in coronary stent restenotic tissue in patients with diabetes: insights from optical coherence tomography image analysis.

Abstract Background Coronary optical coherence tomography (OCT) enables virtual depiction of histological findings of in-stent restenotic tissue. The aim of this study was to investigate the microvessel proliferation within in-stent restenotic tissue and the influence of diabetes mellitus (DM). Methods We examined 54 in-stent restenotic coronary artery lesions (stenotic area>50%) from 50 consecutive patients including 28 with DM (56%) and 9 insulin-treated DM patients (18%); who underwent coronary time-domain OCT imaging with automatic pull back (1mm/s, 20 frames/s). Microvessels were defined as low-signal cavities with a diameter of 50–150 microns and a trajectory parallel to the lumen recognized on 3 consecutive cross-sectional OCT image frames. The microvessel index was calculated as the number of frames with microvessel/total number of frames×100. Patients were stratified into 3 groups: 1) without microvessels, 2) with a low ( Results Microvessels were detected in 566 frames (3.1%) from 26 lesions (48%) in 24 patients (48%). A greater incidence of DM and higher serum glucose levels were observed in the high microvessel index group (DM: 42% vs 58% vs 83%, p=0.049; serum glucose level: 118.2±44.6 vs 122.6±31.0 vs 172.8±63.1mg/dL, p=0.03 between low and high microvessel index group, p=0.005 between no microvessel and high microvessel index group). Conclusions Microvessel formation may be a unique pathophysiological factor of in-stent restenoses in patients with DM.