ABSTRACT
Introduction Restenosis after percutaneous intervention has plagued interventional cardiology since its inception. Multiple techniques have been tried without success to eliminate this problem. One of the main reasons for this failure is the lack of knowledge regarding the mechanism of restenosis. It is crucial, therefore, that other factors, which may help in assessing the risk of restenosis, be determined. Indeed, the assessment of clinical risk factors for coronary heart disease is now commonplace in clinical cardiology; the prevention and treatment of these risks have been a major step forward in cardiology, and many patients have benefited from it. In a similar way, knowledge of a variety of factors with a predictive value may help in the selection and treatment of patients who are at increased risk of restenosis and therefore reduce the rate of restenosis. The focus of this chapter is to give an overview of predictors of restenosis after any percutaneous intervention – clinically, biochemically, angiographically as well as by using intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) – that have been proposed in the recent literature.
