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Cardiac and Vascular Center, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
Accepted for publication June 7, 2007.
* Address correspondence to Dr Gwon, Cardiac and Vascular Center, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 50 Irwon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 135-710, South Korea (Email: hcgwon{at}smc.samsung.co.kr).
| Abstract |
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Methods: Patients with multivessel disease who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention with DESs (n = 441) or CABG (n = 390) between March 2003 and March 2005 were included. The primary outcomes of this study were defined as the absence of major adverse cardiac and cerebral events at 12 months, including death from any cause, cerebrovascular accidents, acute myocardial infarctions, and repeat revascularization after percutaneous coronary intervention with DESs or CABG.
Results: During 12 months of follow-up, the mortality rate was also not significantly different between the two groups (2.1% versus 3.2%, p = 0.170). The incidences of composite death, cerebrovascular accident, and acute myocardial infarction were not significantly different between groups (2.8% versus 3.9%, p = 0.180). The rate of overall major adverse cardiac and cerebral events was higher in DES group compared with the CABG group (13.0% versus 4.2%, p < 0.001), as driven by the higher incidence of myocardial infarction and revascularization.
Conclusions: The incidences of death and cerebrovascular event were not significantly different between the DES and CABG groups in the patients with multivessel disease. However, the overall incidence of major adverse cardiovascular and cerebral events seems to be favorable for CABG group even this era of DESs.
| Introduction |
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We investigated the clinical outcomes of the current DES versus CABG approaches in a series of patients with multivessel CAD.
| Material and Methods |
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Patient Selection
The patients were recruited from the cardiovascular catheterization and coronary artery bypass surgery databases of Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea. Patients were included if they underwent PCI with a DES or CABG between March 2003 and March 2005 for 2 or more significant de novo lesions located in different major epicardial coronary arteries. Exclusion criteria included patients with previous coronary intervention or CABG, cardiogenic shock, acute myocardial infarction (AMI) requiring emergency PCI, congenital heart disease, concomitant valve surgery, mechanical complications (eg, ventricular septal defect), free wall rupture, and significant left main trunk disease.
Percutaneous Coronary Intervention and Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting
As a treatment option, a DES or CABG was selected by the preference of patients and doctors. CABG was preferred in patients with more extensive disease, two or more chronic total occlusions, severe left ventricular dysfunction, and diabetes mellitus. In the DES group, we tried functional revascularization rather than complete anatomic revascularization by dilating the culprit lesions that had a stenosis diameter of more than 75% in relatively big arteries. In CABG group, arterial grafting with off-pump coronary artery bypass was preferred technique, when possible. Carotid Doppler imaging was checked routinely and brain magnetic resonance imaging, if necessary. We did not limit the use of aspirin or heparin before and after surgery.
Study End Points and Follow-Up
Baseline clinical, laboratory, and angiographic characteristics were collected from the databases and medical records. Follow-up clinical status was documented by review of hospital records, telephone interviews, or by contacting general practitioners. Coronary angiography was not routinely monitored.
The primary outcomes of this study were to determine the incidences of any 12-month major adverse cardiac and cerebral event (MACCE), defined as a composite event of death from any cause, AMI, cerebrovascular accidents (CVA), or repeat revascularization after PCI or CABG. The secondary outcomes of the study were the incidences of 30-day MACCE, 30-day and 12-month composite deaths, CVA and AMI.
Definitions
A significant lesion was defined as stenosis of at least 50% of the diameter of a vessel with a reference diameter of more than 1.5 mm by visual estimation. The procedural success of PCI was defined as thrombosis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) flow grade 3, with a final residual stenosis of less than 30% without death, MI, or emergency CABG before hospital discharge.
A complete anatomic revascularization was considered as accomplished when all vessels with 50% or more diameter stenosis were successfully revascularized. A complete functional revascularization was considered as accomplished when all vessels with a 75% or more diameter stenosis were successfully revascularized.
Death was defined as any postprocedural death and was considered of cardiac origin unless there was documentation of another cause. MI was defined as the presence of significant new Q waves in at least two electrocardiographic leads and chest discomfort associated with cardiac enzyme elevation more than three times the upper limit of the normal value. CVA was defined as ischemic neurologic deficits lasting more than 24 hours.
The Parsonnet score, which was originally developed to assess the risk for cardiac surgery, was used to estimate the baseline risk of the patients [6]. According to this scoring system, the patients were stratified as high risk if their score exceeded 15.
Statistical Analysis
All values are presented as the mean ± standard deviation. Comparisons between continuous data were tested using unpaired t tests or Wilcoxon ranked scores when applicable. Categoric data were tested using the Fisher exact test or the
2 test. Event-free survival was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and compared with the log-rank test.
A stepwise multivariate Cox proportional hazards model was created with the use of baseline clinical characteristics and procedure-related variables to identify independent predictors of MACCE. Preselected variables were revascularization modality (CABG versus PCI), age, sex, Q-wave myocardial infarction, diabetes mellitus, disease of the left anterior descending artery (LAD), three-vessel disease versus two-vessel disease, renal impairment (serum creatinine > 150 mmol/L) and Parsonnet score. All tests were two-tailed, and p < 0.05 was considered significant. All analyses were performed with SPSS 10.0 software (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL).
| Results |
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Baseline and Procedural Characteristics
Baseline clinical and procedural characteristics are summarized in Tables 1 and 2.
The proportions of high-risk patients (Parsonnet score > 15) were similar between the two groups: 15.4% in the DES group versus 16.7% in the CABG group (p = 0.625).
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Influence of Diabetes on Clinical Outcomes
Clinical outcomes according to the presence of treated diabetes are summarized in Table 5. In the DES group, the rates of composite death/MI/CVA and MACCE were significantly higher among patients with diabetes (p = 0.011 and 0.012, respectively). In the CABG group, no significant differences were found in the rates of clinical events, including death, CVA, MI, CABG, repeat PCI, and overall MACCE between the diabetic and nondiabetic patients.
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| Comment |
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This study designated DESs and CABG as elective treatment strategies for patients with multivessel CAD at a single center. Although our study was analyzed retrospectively, this study is one of only a few trials reporting the clinical outcomes of patients with multivessel CAD treated with a DES versus CABG.
During the BMS era, there was a meta-analysis of the results of the Arterial Revascularization Therapies Study (ARTS) [7], Surgery or Stent Trial [8], Argentine randomized study (coronary angioplasty with stenting versus coronary bypass surgery in patients with multivessel disease) [9], and the Medical Angioplasty or Surgery II Study [10]. This analysis confirmed that there was no difference in 1-year mortality between BMSs and surgical revascularization among 3051 patients [11]. In the present study, the mortality rate in the CABG group was 3.2% at 12 months, similar to the 2.8% among patients from the meta-analysis [11] and not significantly different from the 2.1% in the DES group (p = 0.170). The composite incidence of death, CVA, and MI was 2.8% in the DES group and 3.9% in the CABG group, significantly lower than in patients from the meta-analysis (8.7% in the BMS group versus 9.1% in the CABG group) [11].
The need for repeat revascularization caused by restenosis remains the major limitation, however. After the introduction of the DES approach, different registries have reported a reduction in restenosis for the treatment of multivessel CAD [12–16]. In the present study, compared with the BMS era, the rate of repeat revascularizations by PCI or CABG was improved to 10.6% in the DES group and to 0.8% in the CABG group. Repeat revascularization practices remained higher in the DES group compared with the CABG group, but the differences have narrowed in the present study relative to the meta-analysis in the BMS era (10.6% versus 0.8% and 19.2% versus 4.4%, respectively) [11].
The ARTS-II trial was a multicenter, nonrandomized, open-label stratified trial designed to evaluate sirolimus-eluting stent implantation in patients with multivessel CAD using a surgical group taken from ART I as an historical control [13]. There was no difference in the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events at 1 year between the ART-II DES trial registry patients and the CABG randomized patients in the ART-I trial (10.4% versus 11.6%) [2]. However, the CABG group may have been underestimated by nonconcurrent comparison in the ART-II trial. In our study, evaluated by concurrent comparison, the overall rate of MACCEs was 13.0% in the DES group and 4.2% in the CABG group.
The improvements of technique and tools in both groups depend on major advances. However, we have also seen the implementation of more aggressive adjunctive pharmacology, such as the use of aspirin, clopidogrel, glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors, and statins; better control of risk factors, and improving surgical experience [5, 17]. We assumed that the rate of overall MACCEs would be markedly improved in the CABG group compared with the DES group because off-pump surgery or use of arterial-only grafts in our institution was more frequently performed than in previous studies [18–20]. Although complete arterial grafting was not significantly better than noncomplete arterial grafting, off-pump surgery showed a trend of better result than on-pump surgery, particularly in the short-term result (Table 7). In the present study, the rate of off-pump surgery was 79.2%, higher than the rate of 3% to 64% among patients from the meta-analysis [18], and the rate of complete arterial grafts was 74.4%, higher than 12% in run-in phase of the Synergy Between PCI with the TAXUS DES and Cardiac Surgery (SYNTAX) study [5].
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Our study has some limitations. First, it was not a randomized trial in that the selection of treatment was likely influenced by patient characteristics and by patient and doctor preferences. Especially, patients with more extensive disease, two or more chronic total occlusions, severe left ventricular dysfunction, and diabetes preferred CABG than a DES in treatment options. As summarized in Table 1, the study populations differed greatly. Although the Parsonnet score was similar between two groups and multivariate analysis was performed, we cannot control potentially important unknown variables.
Second, it is not clear if the results of this study can be applied in general because of the high rate of complete arterial graft and off-pump surgery, whereas a relatively small number of stents were used in PCI group.
Third, a follow-up loss of 4.3% may be high considering the lost patients could have had a higher incidence of events.
Finally, the long-term implications of our findings are not evident because this study limited the follow-up duration to 12 months. Considering the Kaplan-Meier curve of survival and event-free survival was crossed at 2 years, CABG group will have better result in the long-term follow-up.
In conclusion, it seems that the incidences of death and cerebrovascular events were not significantly different between the DES and CABG groups in the patients with multivessel disease. However, the overall incidence of major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events seems to be favorable for the CABG group even this era of DES. The long-term result of a large-scale randomized trial is needed to confirm these findings.
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