Percutaneous Coronary Intervention With and Without Intravascular Ultrasound for Patients With Complex Lesions: Utilization, Mortality, and Target Vessel Revascularization.

BACKGROUND: Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) has several benefits during percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs), including more accurate vessel sizing, improved stent expansion, and better strut apposition. Prior clinical trials have demonstrated a reduction in cardiac events when IVUS is used. However, there is limited information about the utilization of IVUS and the outcomes of IVUS-guided versus angiography-guided PCI in patients with complex lesions in a contemporary population-based setting. METHODS: New York's PCI registry was used to identify 44 305 patients with complex lesions (lesions that complicate stenting or that require multiple stents) undergoing PCI with and without IVUS guidance and discharged between December 1, 2013 and November 30, 2018. Trends and inter-hospital variation in IVUS use were examined. Risk-adjusted mortality and target vessel revascularization were compared. RESULTS: A total of 6174 (13.9%) PCI patients underwent IVUS-guided PCI. The median follow-up period was 2.5 years. The percent of patients with complex lesions who underwent IVUS-guided PCI rose from 13.4% in 2014 to 16.5% in 2018 (P<0.0001 for trend), with the main increases occurring in the last 2 years of the period. Only 31 of 66 hospitals in the study used IVUS for >5% of their study patients. IVUS-guided PCI patients experienced significantly lower mortality (adjusted hazard ratio=0.89 [0.79-0.98] after adjustment using a Cox proportional hazards model, and HR=0.88 [0.78-0.99] for propensity-matched patients). We also found that IVUS-guided PCI patients had a lower rate of target vessel revascularization (adjusted hazard ratio=0.88 [0.80-0.97]) after adjusting using Cox proportional hazards with competing risk of mortality and after propensity matching (0.88 [0.79-0.99]). CONCLUSIONS: Utilization of IVUS for complex lesions has increased but contemporary rates remain low, and there are large inter-hospital variations. The use of IVUS for complex lesions was associated with lower risk of medium-term mortality and target vessel revascularization.

Percutaneous Coronary Revascularization: JACC Historical Breakthroughs in Perspective.

Over the last 4 decades, percutaneous coronary intervention has evolved dramatically and is now an acceptable treatment option for patients with advanced coronary artery disease. However, trialists have struggled to establish the respective roles for percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass graft surgery, especially in patients with multivessel disease and unprotected left-main stem coronary artery disease. Several pivotal trials and meta-analyses comparing these 2 revascularization strategies have enabled the relative merits of each technique to be established with regard to the type of ischemic syndrome, the coronary anatomy, and the patient's overall comorbidity. Precision medicine with individualized prognosis is emerging as an important method of selecting treatment. However, the never-ending advancement of technology, in conjunction with the emergence of novel pharmacological agents, will in the future continue to force us to reconsider the evolving question: "Which treatment strategy is better and for which patient?"

Hybrid coronary revascularization vs. percutaneous coronary interventions for multivessel coronary artery disease.

OBJECTIVE: Hybrid coronary revascularization (HCR) combines a minimally invasive surgical approach to the left anterior descending (LAD) artery with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for non-LAD diseased coronary arteries. It is associated with shorter hospital lengths of stay and recovery times than conventional coronary artery bypass surgery, but there is little information comparing it to isolated PCI for multivessel disease. Our objective is to compare long-term outcomes of HCR and PCI for patients with multivessel disease. METHODS: This cohort study used data from New York's cardiac surgery and PCI registries in 2010-2016 to examine mortality and repeat revascularization rates for patients with multivessel coronary artery disease who underwent HCR and PCI. Cox proportional hazards methods were used to reduce selection bias. Patients were followed for a median of four years. RESULTS: There was a total of 335 HCR patients (1.2%) and 25,557 PCI patients (98.8%) after exclusions. There was no difference in 6-year risk adjusted survival between HCR and PCI patients (83.17% vs. 81.65%, adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) = 0.90 (95% CI: 0.67-1.20). However, HCR patients were more likely to be free from repeat revascularization in the LAD artery (91.13% vs. 83.59%, aHR = 0.51 (95% CI: 0.34-0.77)). CONCLUSIONS: For patients with multi-vessel coronary artery disease, HCR is rarely performed. There are no differences in mortality rates after four years, but HCR is associated with lower repeat revascularization rates in the LAD artery, presumably due to better longevity in left arterial mammary grafts.

Three vs twelve months of dual antiplatelet therapy after Zotarolimus-Eluting Stents the OPTIMIZE andomized trial

The current recommendation is for at least 12 months of dual antiplatelettherapy after implantation of a drug-eluting stent. However, the optimal duration of dualantiplatelet therapy with specific types of drug-eluting stents remains unknown.OBJECTIVE To assess the clinical noninferiority of 3 months (short-term) vs 12 months(long-term) of dual antiplatelet therapy in patients undergoing percutaneous coronaryintervention (PCI) with zotarolimus-eluting stents.DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS The OPTIMIZE trialwas an open-label, active-controlled, 1:1randomized noninferiority study including 3119 patients in 33 sites in Brazil between April2010 and March 2012. Clinical follow-up was performed at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months. Eligiblepatients were those with stable coronary artery disease or history of low-risk acute coronarysyndrome (ACS) undergoing PCI with zotarolimus-eluting stents.INTERVENTIONS After PCI with zotarolimus-eluting stents, patients were prescribed aspirin(100-200mg daily) and clopidogrel (75mg daily) for 3 months (n = 1563) or 12 months(n = 1556), unless contraindicated because of occurrence of an end point.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary end pointwas net adverse clinical and cerebralevents (NACCE; a composite of all-cause death, myocardial infarction [MI], stroke, or majorbleeding); the expected event rate at 1 year was 9%, with a noninferiority margin of 2.7%.Secondary end points were major adverse cardiac events (MACE; a composite of all-causedeath, MI, emergent coronary artery bypass graft surgery, or target lesion revascularization)and Academic Research Consortium definite or probable stent thrombosis.RESULTS NACCE occurred in 93 patients receiving short-term and 90 patients receivinglong-term therapy...