Royal Philips, a global leader in health technology, announced an important milestone in the evolving standard of care for treating patients with peripheral vascular disease (PVD): the establishment of the first-ever global consensus for the appropriate use of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) in lower extremity arterial and venous interventions.

Published in the August 2022 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Interventions as “Appropriate Use of Intravascular Ultrasound During Arterial and Venous Lower Extremity Interventions,” the new consensus document from 30 global vascular experts recommends routine use of IVUS as a preferred imaging modality in all phases in many peripheral vascular disease (PVD) procedures.

“The voting panelists considered a variety of clinical scenarios and based on their extensive experience, arrived at a strong consensus,” said lead author Eric A. Secemsky, MD, Interventional Cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston USA. “They recommend routine use of IVUS as a preferred imaging modality in all phases for many peripheral interventions, both diagnostic and therapeutic, as it enables such exquisite visualization of the target vessel and lesion. Their recommendations, which withstood the rigor of peer review, can now be considered in the formulation of clinical guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of peripheral vascular disease.”

PVD affects an estimated 200 million people worldwide, including approximately 40 to 45 million Americans, according to the American Heart Association. The authors noted that minimally invasive approaches for PVD interventions are increasingly common, but traditional imaging techniques like angiography have limitations, including 2-dimensional projections of 3-dimensional vasculature, which can complicate diagnosis and intraprocedural optimization.

“As the global leader in providing vascular solutions to physicians and the patients they serve, we especially value the rigor and independence of this cross-specialty expert consensus,” said Heather Hudnut Page, General Manager and Business Leader for Peripheral Vascular Image Guided Therapy Devices at Philips. “It is exciting to know that this initiative has the potential to standardize the use of IVUS in peripheral interventions and guide clinical decisions to further improve the quality of care procedures for patients.”

Supported in part by research grants from Philips and Boston Scientific, the study was conducted and analyzed independently by Smith Center for Outcomes Research, gathering a wide spectrum of vascular expert opinion to ascertain the role of intravascular imaging in contemporary clinical practice.