Imaging of Left Main Coronary Artery; Untangling the Gordian Knot.

Left Main Coronary Artery (LMCA) disease is considered a standout manifestation of coronary artery disease (CAD), because it is accompanied by the highest mortality. Increased mortality is expected, because LMCA is responsible for supplying up to 80% of total blood flow to the left ventricle in a right-dominant coronary system. Due to the significant progress of biomedical technology, the modern drug-eluting stents have remarkably improved the prognosis of patients with LMCA disease treated invasively. In fact, numerous randomized trials provided similar results in one- and five-year survival of patients treated with percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) -guided with optimal imaging and coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). However, interventional treatment requires optimal imaging of the LMCA disease, such as intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT). The aim of this manuscript is to review the main pathophysiological characteristics, to present the imaging techniques of LMCA, and, last, to discuss the future directions in the depiction of LMCA disease.

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Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors declare no conflict of interest. Anastasios Apostolos, Athanasios Moulias, and Grigorios Tsigkas are serving as Guest Editors of this journal. We declare that Anastasios Apostolos, Athanasios Moulias, and Grigorios Tsigkas had no involvement in the peer review of this article and have no access to information regarding its peer review. Full responsibility for the editorial process for this article was delegated to Jerome L. Fleg.