Meta-Analysis of Head-to-Head Comparison of Intracoronary versus Intravenous Adenosine for the Assessment of Fractional Flow Reserve

Abstract Intravenous (IV) infusion of adenosine represents the gold standard for measuring Fractional Flow Reserve (FFR). However, IV adenosine is more expensive and time-consuming as compared to intracoronary (IC) boluses of adenosine. We conducted a meta-analysis of studies comparing IC to IV adenosine for FFR assessment in the same coronary lesions. We searched for studies comparing IC to IV adenosine and reporting absolute FFR values or rate of abnormal FFR for both routes. Pre-specified subgroup analysis was performed in order to appraise studies using low dose (