Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Versus Myocardial Revascularization Surgery in Multivessel Coronary Artery Disease: Four-Year Followup

Abstract

INTRODUCTION In Cuba, 29,939 deaths from ischemic heart disease were recorded in 2020. Myocardial revascularization surgery and percutaneous coronary intervention are well-established methods of treating patients with multivessel coronary artery disease. These methods can reduce overall deaths, but choosing the optimal strategy for treating left main coronary ischemia is a source of debate among specialists. OBJECTIVE Estimate survival and major cardiac and cerebrovascular events in patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention versus myocardial revascularization surgery and their relationships with pre-existing patients' clinical and angiographic characteristics. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study in 41 patients; 35 men and 6 women aged 40-85 years who had been diagnosed with multivessel coronary artery disease and treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (n = 17) or myocardial revascularization surgery (n = 24) at the Medical-Surgical Research Center in Havana, Cuba, in 2016. The main variable under consideration was the occurrence of major adverse cardiovascular events over a four-year period following these interventions. We collected clinical and angiographic characteristics, and used the Kaplan-Meier test to calculate survival curves. Survival probabilities were compared using the log-rank test. A value of p <0.05 was considered statistically significant. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the hazard ratio, with 95% confidence intervals used for both procedures. RESULTS There were a total of 20 major adverse cardiovascular events, 75% (15/20) of which occurred in patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention and 5% in patients who had myocardial revascularization surgery. The probability of survival was 70.6% in surgery and 37.5% in interventionism; p = 0.043; hazard ratio 1.58 (95% confidence interval 0.987-2.530), p = 0.047. The need to repeat a revascularization procedure was the only major cardiovascular event that showed significant differences between methods (log-rank p = 0.015), and was more frequent in percutaneous intervention. CONCLUSIONS Myocardial revascularization surgery offers a better chance of survival than percutaneous coronary intervention. Major adverse cardiovascular events are more frequent in patients with coronary interventionism, due to the need to repeat revascularization.