Internationale Zeitschrift für Herz-Kreislauf-Forschung

Excimer Laser Angioplasty in Calcified Coronary Lesions: Evidence of Calcium Ablation by Optical Coherence Tomography

Baskaran Chandrasekar, Mohammad Al Mutairi and Khaled Al Merri

 Excimer Laser Angioplasty in Calcified Coronary Lesions: Evidence of Calcium Ablation by Optical Coherence Tomography

During percutaneous coronary revascularization, calcified lesions can prove resistant to balloon expansion and cause stent underexpansion. We report on a patient with a calcified resistant lesion in whom adjunctive therapy with excimer laser enabled successful expansion of the stent. We document in this report using optical coherence tomography imaging, the calcium ablator effects of excimer laser, an effect which has not been demonstrated thus far, to our knowledge.