NO-REFLOW PHENOMENON

INCIDENCES AFTER PCI

Abstract

Background: Profound reduction in antegrade epicardial coronary flow with
concomitant ischemia is seen occasionally during percutaneous coronary intervention despite
the absence of evident vessel dissection, obstruction, or distal vessel embolic cutoff. Study
Design: Descriptive study. Setting: Khatum-un-Nabyeen Heart Center for percutaneous
coronary intervention. Period: January 2016 and December 2016. Methods and Results: Both
males and females with age 30 years or more, presented. Patients with coronary angiograms
suggestive of percutaneous coronary intervention were included in the study by using nonprobability,
purposive sampling technique. Following ethical and research approval from the
hospital administration, clinical profile of the patients was documented. Patients presented
with acute coronary syndrome as well as patients with stable coronary artery disease requiring
coronary intervention based on clinical, ECG, non-invasive test or coronary angiogram were
enrolled in the study. Patients with previous history of PCI or CABG were also included in the
study. Pregnant patients were excluded from the study. The objective of this study is to find out
the incidence of no reflow phenomenon during PCI in our population. The TIMI flow grade was
determined for each treated vessel. The criteria for no-reflow was development of substantial
flow reduction (less than TIMI 3 flow) in the absence of apparent dissection, thrombosis, or
distal vessel cutoff suggestive of macroembolization. SPSS version 16.0 was used for analyzing
the data. Frequency and percentages were used for categorical variables. Mean±SD was used
for numerical variables. Data were presented in the form of tables. Conclusions: The no-reflow
phenomenon, reduction in distal flow without apparent dissection or distal embolization - occurs
in 2.25% of coronary interventions.