Percutaneous coronary intervention for chronic total occlusions: improved survival for patients with successful revascularization compared to a failed procedure.

Background: There are limited data on the impact of successful chronic total occlusion (CTO) revascularization by percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) on survival. We performed a retrospective study comparing the survival between patients with a successful and a failed CTO revascularization by PCI.
Methods: Between January 1, 2000 and June 30, 2004, 543 of 5803 (9.4%) patients underwent PCI for a CTO at our center. A CTO was defined as an occlusion of the artery present for at least 3 months with Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction flow grade 0 or 1. Patient records were linked to a national database to monitor all deaths during follow up. Propensity matching was used to balance out case mix differences.
Results: Technical success for CTO was 377 of 543 (69.4%). In-hospital mortality was 0.3% and 1.2% for the CTO success and CTO failure patients, respectively. During a mean (SD) follow up of 1.7 (0.5) years, the mortality rate was 2.5% in the CTO success patients and 7.3% in the CTO failure patients. The crude hazard ratio for death with CTO failure was 3.92 (95% confidence intervals 1.56-10.07; P = 0.004). The rates of coronary artery bypass were 3.2% vs. 21.7% (P < 0.001) for the CTO success and CTO failure patients, respectively. Our propensity matched 157 CTO success to CTO failure patients and the associated hazard ratio for death with CTO failure was 4.63 (95% confidence interval 1.01-12.61; P = 0.049). Multivariate analysis showed that CTO failure was an independent predictor of death.
Conclusion: Patients with a successful revascularization of a CTO by PCI have an increased survival rate compared to patients with a failed CTO procedure.
((c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)