The 11-year outcome of PCI for treatment of left main stem disease
Authors: Murad S , Khan K , Abdulelah Z , Leung J , Hsu Y K , Shahid F , Ludman P F , Khan S Q 
Published: October 2022

Background

Left Main Stem Disease (LMS) has historically been treated with coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). However, not all patents with LMS are candidates for CABG due to co-morbidities. There is limited long-term follow-up of patients undergoing PCI in the real world. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the long-term mortality following LMS PCI.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective study of patients who had undergone PCI for LMS disease at our hospital over a 11-year period between July 2010-July 2021. Data was collected from electronic medical records and analyzed using Kaplain-Meier survival analysis. Follow-up was obtained through linkage with the Office of National Statistics.

Results

498 patients underwent LMS PCI (5.1% of the total PCI cases). The overall survival rate was 70%. Median survival following PCI was 1,196 days (IQR = 1,796). The mean age of the patients was 70.7 years; 70.5% were males. 70.9% of patients underwent PCI for Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS), and 15.3% had STEMI. 33.7% of patients had a history of diabetes, 8% had stroke, 8.2% had COPD, and 8.8% had PVD. 51 patients went into cardiogenic shock, and 25 died prior to discharge.

Survival of the ACS group was significantly lower than the stable group (67% vs 77%, p&lt;0.01); the STEMI group did not significantly differ from rest of the ACS group (62% vs 66%, p=0.87). Survival in those &lt;60 years of age was significantly higher than in those &gt;60 years (80% vs 68%; p&lt;0.01). The presence of one or more co-morbidities was associated with higher survival compared to zero co-morbidities (74% vs 65%, p&lt;0.01). Patients with a history of diabetes had a significantly lower survival rate than those without diabetes (63% vs 73%, p&lt;0.01). Patients with an LV ejection fraction ≤35% had a significantly lower survival than those with an ejection fraction &gt;35% (22% vs 29%, p&lt;0.01); only 259 patients had data on LV function. Patients who developed cardiogenic shock had a significantly lower survival rate than those who did not develop shock (38% vs 70%; p&lt;0.01). When these patients were excluded from the data set, the overall survival rate increased from 70% to 74%. Lastly, a multinomial analysis showed that the only independent predictors of mortality were age (p&lt;0.01) and cardiogenic shock (p&lt;0.01).

Conclusion

Our results show that the real world 10-year mortality rate following LMS PCI is influenced by multiple factors including age, shock, and LV function. The high mortality rate was potentially due to the significant number of acute cases (70.1%) in non-operable patients. While factors such as age and past medical history are considered in the decision-making process regarding CABG vs PCI, we saw that specific subgroups within these factors may have decreased the effectiveness of PCI as a treatment for LMS disease, suggesting that deeper analysis into these risk factors is required when deciding between CABG and PCI for LMS disease management.

Funding Acknowledgement

Type of funding sources: None.