Safety and Efficacy of Minimum- or Zero-Contrast IVUS-Guided Percutaneous Coronary Interventions in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients: A Systematic Review.

Conventional percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) frequently cause severe complications in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Low-to-zero contrast intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) guided PCIs are promising alternatives in the CKD setting. We aim to systematically review up-to-date literature that have reported data and outcomes of low-to-zero contrast PCIs performed in CKD patients. We searched Embase, PubMed, and Cochrane databases for full-text articles that reported original data regarding efficacy and/or safety outcomes of IVUS-guided PCIs in patients with CKD. The quality of non-randomized trials included was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Six papers were included in the present systematic review: One non-randomized trial, two case series, and three case reports. Given the literature reported so far, contrast-free and IVUS-guided PCI procedures in patients with CKD appear to be safe (both in cardiac and renal outcomes) with a comparable efficacy to the conventional procedure, even in complex atherosclerotic lesions. No patient included in the mentioned studies showed renal function deterioration and did not need renal replacement therapy after the zero-contrast IVUS-guided percutaneous procedures. From a cardiovascular point of view, this technique proved to be safe in terms of cardiovascular outcomes. The undesirable consequences of conventional PCI in the CKD population might soon be effectively hampered by safer low-to-zero contrast IVUS-guided PCI procedures after a mandatory and rigorous evidence-based validation in long-awaited randomized controlled trials.