Coronary angioplasty (PCI) of chronic total occlusions (CTO), even when successful, are associated to less favourable long term results. The recent use of coronary stents has improved the long term outcome of those interventions.
Purpose: To evaluate the short term results and long term occurrence of major adverse coronary events (MACE): death, MI, urgent revascularization and the need for a new target vessel revascularization (TVR) in patients with CTO who had previously been submitted to a PCI with excimer laser for plaque debulking followed by a provisional stent.
Population: From our database, we selected 19 patients with a mean age of 51 +/- 13 years (18 male) submitted to PCI between 1994 and 1998. Of those patients, 10 had had of a previous MI. Hypertension, smoking habits and hypercholesterolemia were present in 9 patients (42%). Two patients had diabetes. The main reason for PCI was stable angina in 16 patients (84%) and unstable in 3 patients (16%). Single-vessel disease was present in 18 patients (94%) and multiple-vessel in 1 patient (6%); left ventricular ejection fraction was preserved in 18 patients (94%). Single vessel PCI was performed in 16 patients (84%) and double vessel in 3 patients. Plaque debulking with excimer laser was performed in all patients, followed by 23 stents (Multilink--8; Gianturco Roubin--5; Palmaz Schatz--4; others--6). The mean clinical follow-up was 19 months.
Results: There were no major short-term clinical events (death, MI or urgent revascularization). During follow-up, TVR was only required in 5 patients (26%), all of them in the first 7 months after PCI.
Conclusions: In the highly selected population, PCI for chronic total occlusion, with excimer laser plaque debulking followed by provisional stents, was a safe procedure with a very acceptable rate of new target vessel revascularization in the follow-up period.