Dr. Ning Guo Demonstrates the Power of Integrating Morphology and Physiology Assessment for Precise PCI
Hong Kong, October 4, 2025 – The Innovative Cardiovascular Initiative Summit 2025 (ICI 2025) commenced today at the Hong Kong Science Park, gathering leading experts in interventional cardiology to discuss the frontier technologies driving precise coronary care. Dr. Ning Guo, Chief Physician at The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, delivered a keynote address, presenting pioneering work on the fusion of physiology and imaging for optimizing OCT-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).
Imaging × Physiology: From Parallel Approaches to True Integration
In her lecture, “Combining Morphology and Physiology in Coronary Assessment with OCT,” Dr. Guo emphasized that traditional angiography and isolated physiological indices such as fractional flow reserve (FFR) cannot fully capture the complexity of modern coronary disease.
While FFR remains the gold standard for detecting myocardial ischemia, landmark studies — including COMBINE (OCT-FFR) (Eur Heart J. 2021; 42: 4671–4679) and PREVENT (Eur Heart J. 2021; 42: 4680–4690) — have demonstrated that vulnerable plaques may exist even in FFR-negative lesions, revealing the limitations of single-modality evaluation.
She noted that the ongoing “I-Imaging + P-Physiology renaissance” — the integration of intravascular imaging (OCT/IVUS) and functional assessment (FFR and derived indices) — is redefining how clinicians diagnose, plan, and optimize PCI procedures. This combined methodology provides higher precision, consistency, and patient benefit in line with emerging global clinical guidelines.
Vivolight P80 OCT: Dual-Modality Innovation for Functional and Morphological Assessments
Dr. Guo presented clinical data obtained using Vivolight Medical’s P80 Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) system — a pioneering platform capable of simultaneous functional (OCT-FFR) and structural imaging within a single pullback.