Lazkani M, et al. - Use of intracoronary imaging instead of angiography-alone in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was not beneficial with regards to 30-day hospital readmission rates. However, use of intracoronary imaging may be linked with improved in-hospital mortality.

• Using the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project's National Readmission Database of 2016, patients who had PCI were selected (n=188,368 index admissions) and split into 2 PCI arms: intravascular imaging (''imaging'' group, n=12,379) and fluoroscopy guided (''angiography'' group, n=175,989).

• Thirty-day readmissions did not differ between both groups (~10.8% in both arms, p = .788), but imaging-guided PCI led to a statistically significant reduction of in-hospital mortality.

• The imaging-guided arm had longer median length of stay (3 vs 2 days) and higher resource utilization.

• Both univariate and multivariate analysis showed that having an existing coagulopathy was the strongest predictor of in-hospital mortality.