Coronary Stenting in Patients With Ischemic Heart Disease With Multivessel Involvement of Coronary Vascular Bed and Low Syntax Score

Material and methods. We followed 619 patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) and multivessel involvement of coronary arteries: 317 patients subjected to coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG, group 1) and 302 patients subjected to multivessel percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI, group 2) with implantation of drug eluting stents. Both groups had comparable clinical characteristics. During hospitalization we registered deaths and unfavorable cardiological and cerebrovascular events. In remote period after revascularization we assessed survival, angina recurrences and related repeat revascularizations, and rate of severe cardiovascular complications (composite of deaths, acute myocardial infarctions [AMI], stroke, and repeat myocardial revascularizations). Results. During hospitalization there were no significant differences between groups by parameters studied: death rate was 1.7 and 0.9%, that of AMI 2.6 and 1.9%, of stroke 0.9% and 0, of composite of death, AMI, and stroke 5.1 and 1.9% (p=0.37) in groups 1 and 2, respectively. Survival in remote period was 90.2 (group 1) and 92.7% (group 2). Comparison of Kaplan-Meier survival curves also revealed no significant differences between groups. Angina recurrence/repeat revascularization took place in 54 (17.0%) and in 64 (21.2%) patients in groups 1 and 2, respectively (p=0.128). Repeat revascularization was carried out in 32 of 54 patients (59.3%) in group 1 and in 58 Of 64 patients (90.6%) in group 2. Rate of severe unfavorable events during whole period of follow up was 33.1% in group 1 and 30.5% in group 2 (p>0.05). Conclusion. In IHD patients with multivessel coronary artery involvement and low Syntax Score immediate and long term (5 year) results of stenting with drug eluting stents are not inferior to results of CABG.