Intravascular Lithotripsy and Atherectomy for Calcified Coronary and Peripheral Arteries
This community focuses on mechanical and energy-based techniques to modify heavily calcified arterial plaque, enabling the successful delivery of stents and balloons in coronary and peripheral vessels where standard interventions fail.
The work centers on three primary modalities for plaque modification: intravascular lithotripsy, which uses acoustic pressure waves to fracture calcium; rotational atherectomy, which mechanically ablates resistant tissue; and excimer laser atherectomy, which uses ultraviolet light to vaporize plaque. These techniques are applied to treat severely calcified coronary stenoses, chronic total occlusions, and in-stent restenosis. The research also extensively covers the use of intravascular imaging, specifically optical coherence tomography and intravascular ultrasound, to assess calcium burden and guide these procedural interventions.
The community is most prominent in research tracked for calcium, representing 0.1% of all calcium-related papers, and holmium, representing 0.8% of holmium research. Calcium also contributes the highest number of papers to this group, with 328 entries.
The community comprises 4,001 papers, publishing most frequently in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, and the Journal of Vascular Surgery.
Recent work continues to compare the efficacy and safety of intravascular lithotripsy against rotational atherectomy and laser ablation for coronary and peripheral calcification, including new registry data on outcomes in iliac and femoral artery disease.