Usefulness of intraopertive ultrasonography during directional atherectomy using SilverHawk/TurboHawk system

Critical Appraisal of the Contemporary Use of Atherectomy to Treat Femoral-Popliteal Atherosclerotic Disease

OBJECTIVE

Atherectomy has become increasingly used as an endovascular treatment of lower extremity atherosclerotic disease in the United States. Concerns and controversies about its indication and outcomes exist. The goal of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to investigate the outcomes and complications related to atherectomy to treat femoropopliteal atherosclerotic disease.

METHODS

A systematic review following the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement was performed. Four major scientific repositories, MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, and Thompson Web of Sciences were queried from their inception to April 5, 2020. Data was reviewed and entered in a dedicated dataset by the investigators. Outcomes included patency rates, clinical and hemodynamic improvement, and morbidity and mortality associated with atherectomy interventions.

RESULTS

Twenty-four studies encompassing 1900 patients met inclusion criteria for this study. 74.3% of patients presented with Rutherford class (RC) 1-3 and 25.7% presented with RC class 4-6. 1445 patients underwent atherectomy, and 455 patients were treated without atherectomy. Atherectomy patients underwent directional atherectomy (DA, n = 851), rotational atherectomy (RA, n = 851), laser atherectomy (LA, n = 201), and orbital atherectomy (OA, n = 78). The majority of patients additionally received adjunct treatments which were variable across studies and included a combination of stenting, balloon angioplasty (BA), or drug coated balloon (DCB) angioplasty. Technical success was achieved in 92.3% of cases. Distal embolization, vessel perforation, and dissection occurred in 3.4%, 1.9%, and 4% of cases respectively. Initial patency was 95.4% and at 12-month median follow up primary patency was 72.6%. ABI improved from pre-operative mean of 0.6 to post-operative mean of 0.84. Incidence of major amputation and mortality over the follow up period was 2.2% and 3.4% respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

This review of the published data suggests that femoropopliteal atherectomy can be completed safely while modestly improving ABIs and maintaining one-year patency in nearly three out of four patients; however, this is based on heterogeneous studies that skew generalizable conclusions about atherectomy's efficacy. Atherectomy places a high cost burden on the healthcare system and is utilized in the United States at a higher rate than in other countries. Our review of the literature does not demonstrate clear atherectomy superiority to alternatives that would warrant pervasive and increasing use of this costly technology. Future work should focus on developing high quality randomized controlled trials to determine specific patient and lesion characteristics in which atherectomy can add value.

Better treatment option in chronic superficial femoral artery occlusive disease: comparison of methods (meta-analysis)

Introduction: The objective is to evaluate the frequency of primary obstruction events (PrO) during one-year follow-up after performing excisional atherectomy with the SilverHawk/TurboHawk atherectomy device (S/TH) or remote superficial femoral artery endarterectomy (RSFAE) in patients with the chronic superficial femoral artery occlusive disease (СSFAOD).

Methods: We included all randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and not-RCTs concerning the treatment of patients with СSFAOD after S/TH and RSFAE without duration.

Results: Twenty-nine items (1990-2017) were discovered; 27 articles on the levels of evidence were included in qualitative synthesis; 9 studies (meta-analysis) were included in quantitative synthesis. The results of 2762 patients’ treatment were summed up in our analysis (1422 patients S/TH; 1340 patients RSFAE). All included reports were at low risk of bias. According to the criterion "frequency of PrO" during one-year follow-up, the pooled Hazard Ratios indicate significant favours of S/TH if compared it with RSFAE (HR= 0.66 (0.57 to 0.76, P < 0.00001), I2 = 9%).

Conclusion: Our study showed that S/TH with the SpiderFX device (distal embolic protection) are safe and effective treatment option for short lesion (<15 cm) in patients with СSFAOD. The usage of S/TH methods significantly reduced number of PrO if compared it with RSFAE. In long-segment lesion (>15 cm) in patients with СSFAOD, RSFAE may be considered better than an endovascular procedure. But still it is necessary to conduct well-planned randomized studies to determine effectiveness and safety of the compared methods (S/TH and RSFAE) in patients with long-segment lesion (>15 cm).