Early versus delayed treatment with ticagrelor on residual thrombus after percutaneous coronary intervention in patients presenting with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome: an optical coherence tomography study

Ticagrelor, a P2Y12 antagonist, is well known for its rapid, high-potent inhibition of platelet aggregation by pharmacokinetic studies [ 1 ]. In the PLATO study, ticagrelor, compared to clopidogrel, reduced the incidence of myocardial infarction, stroke, cardiovascular death and definite stent thrombosis, during 12-month follow-up in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) [ 2 , 3 ]. To date, the effect of early ticagrelor administration versus treatment at the time of PCI has not been well studied. The ATLANTIC study demonstrated that prehospital administration of ticagrelor did not improve pre-PCI coronary reperfusion compared to in-hospital treatment [ 4 ]. We aimed to ...