The application of drug-coated balloon to in situ short and long lesions of large coronary artery vessels.

OBJECTIVE: To observe the efficacy of drug-coated balloon (DCB) in the treatment of in situ short (reference diameter ≥2.8 mm) and long lesions (reference diameter ≥2.8 mm, length ≥20 mm) of large coronary artery vessels. METHODS: A total of 126 patients who were diagnosed and treated in the Department of Cardiology, Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University from April 2021 to December 2024 were selected, and all of them were treated with DCB for in situ primary coronary artery lesions. Computer-based quantitative coronary angiography analysis software was used to analyze the coronary angiography images of included patients obtained at three different time points; pre-interventional procedure, immediate post-interventional procedure, and follow-up. The selected patients were divided into two groups according to the length of target vessel lesions, namely the lesion length <20 mm group (n = 68) and the lesion length ≥20 mm group (n = 58). The inter-group comparison was performed to evaluate the efficacy of DCB in long in situ coronary artery lesions. RESULTS: The average length of the target vessel lesion in the included cases was 16.64 ± 5.65 mm, and the reference diameter of the target vessel lesion was 3.19 ± 0.35 mm. During follow-up of 14.80 ± 8.55 months, none of the patients suffered acute myocardial infarction or severe arrhythmia, cardiogenic shock, and stroke. None of the cases showed revascularization of the target vessel at follow-up, and the late lumen loss during follow-up was -0.03 ± 0.23 mm. There was no significant difference in late lumen loss between the two groups of patients with different lesion lengths [-0.03 ± 0.21 mm vs. -0.02 ± 0.25 mm, P = 0.803]. CONCLUSIONS: DCB is safe and effective in treating in situ short and long lesions of large coronary artery vessels, and it can reduce the late lumen loss in coronary target lesions.