Fractional Flow Reserve: Cost-Effectiveness to Guide Coronary Interventions in Chronic Stable Angina.

Background: In clinical practice management of patients with intermediate coronary artery disease efficiently without costing a lot of money has a value to this therapeutic dilemma, especially in patients presented to the catheterization laboratory without prior functional assessment. Methods: A decision model to compare between the cost of FFR-guided coronary interventions and angiographically guided interventions was done. Intermediate coronary lesions in each patient were assessed twice by using the two methods leading to two decisions for each patient. A comparison between the costs of the two decisions was made. Results: FFR-guided coronary intervention saved 63 stents in 122 lesions in 50 patients. The estimated cost of FFR-guided strategy per patient ranged from 25.000 Egyptian pound (EP) to 45.000 EP with mean value of 26.860+4.500 EP. Whereas the estimated cost of coronary angiography guided strategy per patient ranged from 15.000 EP to 61.000 EP with mean value of 31.740+12.960 EP. Conclusions: Measuring FFR is cost-effective in chronic stable angina especially in diabetic patients with multivessel disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]