Outcomes of rotational atherectomy versus modified balloon angioplasty in severely calcified coronary lesions based on target lesion location: a post hoc analysis of the PREPARE-CALC randomised trial

Introduction Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) of calcified coronary lesions remains a challenge in routine clinical practice. Optimal lesion preparation prior to stent implantation is essential in this lesion subset1. The randomised PREPARE-CALC (The Comparison of Strategies to PREPARE Severely CALCified Coronary Lesions) trial demonstrated superiority for a strategy of lesion preparation with rotational atherectomy (RA) prior to drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation compared to a modified balloon (MB) angioplasty strategy2. As lesion location may have an important influence on device deliverability and strategy success, the aim of this sub-analysis was to investigate the interaction between treatment effect and lesion location.##...