Amsterdam, the Netherlands – Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, is showcasing innovations at EuroPCR (May 17-20, Paris, France) that can enable interventionists to perform ultra-low contrast percutaneous coronary intervention (ULC-PCI) procedures with greater confidence and clarity. Philips' ULC-PCI solutions co-register instantaneous blood flow measurements and/or intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) images onto real-time fluoroscopy to help interventionists diagnose, decide, guide, treat and confirm the success of PCI, with the potential to limit the use of iodinated contrast media.

Seamlessly integrating into Philips' Image Guided Therapy System - Azurion - the company's unique ULC-PCI solutions provide physicians with tools to help reduce the use of contrast media throughout PCI procedures.

The ability to perform PCI procedures using a very small amount of contrast media enables PCI to be offered to more patient groups, notably patients presenting with both coronary artery disease (CAD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD), who are at high risk of suffering contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) [1] - a life-threatening form of hospital-acquired acute kidney injury (AKI) caused by contrast media toxicity. A 2020 study in the USA concluded that AKI after a PCI procedure resulted in an average increase in length of hospital stay of 3.6 days and an additional healthcare cost of 9,448 USD per patient [2].
"Innovation in catheter-based interventions to treat narrowed heart arteries – so-called percutaneous coronary interventions – continuous to contribute to improving the quality of life and prognosis for millions of patients around the world," said Javier Escaned, MD, PhD, Head of the Interventional Cardiology Section at Hospital Clinico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain. "As a result, more complex patients can now undergo PCI, including those with advanced age and frailty, chronic renal failure, and associated heart conditions. In many of these patients, where the injection of radiological contrast used to guide the PCI can have deleterious effects, technologies developed by Philips that enable physicians to dramatically decrease contrast administration during the procedure is contributing to both the safety and quality of PCI."

Dynamic Coronary Roadmap

During a conventional PCI procedure, contrast media is injected into the patient's coronary arteries to acquire an angiogram, with additional fluoroscopy used during the procedure to help interventionists navigate their guide wires and catheters. To maintain visibility of the arteries, this guidance typically requires repeated contrast media injections, increasing the toxic load on the patient's kidneys. Philips' Dynamic Coronary Roadmap software removes the need for additional contrast media injection by overlaying the preoperative angiogram onto real-time motion-compensated 2D fluoroscopic imaging to provide interventionists with continuous visual feedback on the positioning of guide wires and catheters. In many cases, no additional contrast media injection is required for wire navigation.

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