LAUSR

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for coronary chronic total occlusions (CTOs) remains among the biggest challenges in interventional cardiology. However, limited data exist regarding the clinical outcomes of the three potential therapeutic strategies of PCI, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), and medical therapy (MT). The aim of this study was to compare the clinical outcomes of CTO patients according to the initial treatment strategy. Consecutive patients with at least one coronary CTO from January 2007 to December 2016 in our center were included and categorized as managed either by PCI, CABG, or MT. Propensity-score matching was also performed to adjust for baseline characteristics. The primary outcome was a major adverse cardiac event (MACE), such as cardiac death, myocardial infarction (MI), or target vessel revascularization (TVR). A total of 1655 patients with 1944 CTOs were enrolled in this study. The overall CTO prevalence was 10.5%. A CTO was treated by MT in 800 (48.3%) patients and PCI in 734 (44.4%), while 121 (7.3%) underwent CABG. The median overall follow-up duration was 3.6 (interquartile range = 2.1 to 5.0) years. Patients referred for MT had a higher incidence of MACE (28.0% vs. 17.3% and 12.4%, respectively; all p<0.001) and TVR (16.9% vs. 10.6% and vs. 7.4%, respectively; p<0.001 and = 0.005, respectively) than those managed by PCI and CABG. After propensity-score matching analysis, the rate of PCI was lower than that of MACE (19.2% vs. 28.9%, hazard ratio [HR] = 0.62, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.45–0.85, p=0.003) and TVR (HR = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.35–0.79, p=0.002) when compared with MT. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of MACE (18.5% vs. 23.1%, HR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.53–1.09, p=0.126) or cardiac death (0.51; 0.23–1.15, 0.098) between the successful PCI and MT groups. As an initial management strategy for patients with CTOs, PCI or CABG reduced the risk of MACE (driven by TVR), as compared with MT alone on follow-up. However, successful PCI did not reduce the long-term risk of MACE or cardiac death, as compared with MT alone. Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Project (Z1611ehz747.05590516139) and BeijingLisheng Cardiovascular Health Foundation (LHJJ20158521)