Effect of Post Dilatation on TIMI Flow in Patients Undergoing Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Objective: To evaluate the impact of post dilatation performed with Non- Compliant Balloon on Angiographical outcome (that is TIMI flow grade) in patients who underwent the primary percutaneous coronary intervention. Study Design: Retrospective cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: At Tertiary Cardiac Care Center, Rawalpindi Pakistan from Nov 2020 to Apr 2021. Methodology: The retrospective data of the all the patients with STEMI was assessed via non-probability consecutive sampling technique and analyzed statistically. The study participants were classified into two categories based on whether they underwent post-dilatation or not, i.e., Category-I: patients who underwent post-dilatation with NC balloon and Category-II: patients who did not undergo post-dilatation. The primary study end-point was post-dilatation TIMI flow grade. Continuous study variables were expressed as Mean±S.D and categorical variables as frequencies and percentages. Chi square test was applied to find the association between study variables by keeping 95% CI and 5 % margin of error. p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The study included (n=410) eligible patients in total. Majority were males (n=303; 73.9%), 217 (52.9 %) patients underwent PD procedure. TIMI flow grade did not differ significantly between the two study categories (p-value > 0.05). Postprocedural success rate was 81.3% for patients with PD. Conclusion: The current study illustrates that PD does not adversely affect the final angiographic outcomes when performed after primary angioplasty.