Journal and News Scan

This original article using very carefully the propensity match analysis tried to answer the question regarding long-term outcomes of patients with severely reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) who undergo revascularization by percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) or coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).

 

It had analysed retrospectively a  cohort study from 8 years period with LVEFs less than 35% and left anterior descending (LAD), left main, or multivessel coronary artery disease (with or without LAD involvement) who underwent PCI or CABG.The primary outcome was all-cause mortality. Secondary outcomes were death from cardiovascular disease, major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE; defined as stroke, subsequent revascularization, and hospitalization for MI or heart failure), and each of the individual MACE. A total of 12 113 patients (mean [SD] age, 64.8 (11.0) years for the PCI group and 65.6 [9.7] years for the CABG group; 5084 (72.5%) male for the PCI group and 4229 (82.9%) male for the PCI group) were propensity score matched on 30 baseline characteristics: 2397 patients undergoing PCI and 2397 patients undergoing CABG. The median follow-up was 5.2 years (interquartile range, 5.0-5.3). Patients who received PCI had significantly higher rates of mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 1.6; 95% CI, 1.3-1.7), death from cardiovascular disease (HR 1.4, 95% CI, 1.1-1.6), MACE (HR, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.9-2.2), subsequent revascularization (HR, 3.7; 95% CI, 3.2-4.3), and hospitalization for MI (HR, 3.2; 95% CI, 2.6-3.8) and heart failure (HR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.3-1.6) compared with matched patients who underwent CABG.

 

This study concludes that there is higher rates of mortality and MACE in patients with severely reduced left ventricular ejection who received PCI compared with those who underwent CABG.The authors suggested that these findings may provide insight to physicians who are involved in decision-making for these patients.