ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Late intervention of a chronic total occlusion (CTO) in stable patients is not routinely recommended by randomized trials. Previous studies have confirmed the negative effect of CTOs on prognosis. Purpose: To evaluate if a strategy of viability assessment (VA) to guide revascularization in the left anterior descendent artery (LAD) CTO can reduce 5-year clinical outcomes. METHODS: Retrospective cohort with at 5-year follow-up of 223 patients with LAD with CTO without any other significant lesion. Patients with previous myocardial infarction, cardiomyopathy or clinical instability were excluded. The primary outcome was the composite end point of myocardial infarction (MI), death, new LAD revascularization, heart failure hospitalization (HFH) and severe arrhythmias. RESULTS: We identified 223 patients with LAD CTO as a single lesion. Only 53 (23.7%) had VA to guide therapy compared to 170 (76.2%) with no VA (NVA). The mean ejection fraction was higher in the group with NVA (54.5+/-13.1 vs 41.5+/-11.8 with p<0.001). The occurrence of angina was more common in the NVA group (64.7% vs 30.2% with p<0.001), mainly due to Canadian Cardiology Society II (71.8%). The VA group was more frequently maintained in optimal medical therapy (OMT) (54.7%) compared to the NVA group (23.5%). NVA group underwent revascularization more often than the VA group, PCI was performed in 59.4% vs 41.5% and CABG in 17.1% vs 3.8% respectively. The primary outcome occurred in 5.7% in the VA group compared to 22.4% in the NVA (p=0.056). CONCLUSION: VA is a feasible strategy to reduce the need of unnecessary interventions. There was a marginal reduction of the total number of events in the VA group in the 5-year follow-up, mainly with respect to reducing the need for new LAD revascularization.
