Five-year outcomes in patients with multivessel coronary artery disease undergoing surgery or percutaneous intervention.

The outcomes from real-life clinical studies regarding the optimal revascularization strategy in patients with multivessel coronary artery disease (MVD) are still poorly investigated. In this retrospective study we assessed 5-year outcomes: primary, secondary endpoints and quality of life of 1035 individuals with severe coronary artery disease (CAD) treated either with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) – 356 patients or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) – 679 patients according to the recommendation of a local Heart Team (HT). At 5 years no significant difference in overall mortality and rates of myocardial infarctions (MI) were observed between CABG and PCI cohorts (11.0% vs. 13.4% for PCI, P=0.27 and 9.6% vs. 12.8% for PCI, P=0.12, respectively). The incidence of major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE), mainly driven by increased rates of repeat revascularization (RR) were higher in PCI-cohort than in CABG-group (56.1% vs. 40.4%, P<0.01 and 26.8% vs. 12.6%, P<0.01, respectively), while CABG-patients experienced stroke more often (7.3% vs. 3.1% for PCI, P<0.01). In real-life practice with long-term follow-up, none of the two revascularization modalities implemented following HT decisions showed overwhelming superiority: occurrence of death and MI were similar, rates of RR favoured CABG, while incidence of strokes advocated PCI.