Treatment of Functionally Non-significant Vulnerable Plaques in Patients With Multivessel ST-elevation Myocardial Infarction The VULNERABLE Trial

The study aims to compare a preventive percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) plus optimal medical treatment (OMT) strategy vs. OMT for treatment of non-functionally significant non-culprit lesions presenting with optical coherence tomography (OCT) findings indicative of vulnerable plaque, in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and multivessel disease.

STEMI patients with multivessel disease planned for invasive evaluation of intermediate lesions (40-69% stenosis) are initially investigated with fractional flow reserve (FFR). Patients with FFR ≤ 0.80 are considered as screening failure and treated with PCI. Patients with FFR \> 0.80 are then investigated with optical coherence tomography (OCT). Patients without OCT findings of vulnerable plaque are treated with OMT and included in the OMT registry arm. Patients presenting with OCT characteristics of vulnerable plaque are included in the randomized trial comparing PCI with stent implantation plus OMT versus OMT.