Cardiovascular software developer HeartFlow is touting a presentation at the American College of Cardiology's (ACC) meeting in New Orleans that reported on the utility of its HeartFlow fractional flow reserve CT (FFR-CT) analysis software for evaluating coronary artery disease.
The Assessing Diagnostic Value of Noninvasive FFR-CT in Coronary Care (ADVANCE) trial investigated the potential benefits of using FFR-CT values to determine the risk of adverse cardiovascular events for more than 5,000 patients in the U.S., Japan, Europe, and Canada with suspected coronary artery disease.
The researchers, led by Dr. Manesh Patel from Duke University, found that patients with an FFR-CT value of 0.8 or less had a statistically significant decrease in time to heart attack or death, as well as a lower likelihood of having a major adverse cardiac event and undergoing revascularization one year after initial examination, compared with patients with an FFR-CT value exceeding 0.8.
Thus, the FFR-CT data allowed clinicians to identify which patients were at lowest risk of adverse cardiac events and those who might safely avoid invasive downstream testing, Patel noted in a statement from HeartFlow.
"By adding the HeartFlow FFR-CT to our available resources for diagnosing stable coronary disease, we are able to provide patients with better care as we efficiently evaluate risk in patients getting a coronary [CT angiography exam], more precisely stratify patients, and improve efficiency in the cath lab," he said.
The one-year results were also published online March 17 in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.
