PCI Has Excellent Outcomes for Younger Adults With CAD

(HealthDay News) – For younger adults with premature coronary artery disease (CAD), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is associated with excellent short- and long-term outcomes.

Emanuele Meliga, MD, PhD, of the Mauriziano Hospital in Turin, Italy, and colleagues conducted a retrospective study involving 214 consecutive patients, <40 years of age, who underwent PCI for premature CAD with a bare-metal or drug-eluting stent. The immediate and long-term clinical outcomes were assessed.

The researchers found that a total of 272 stents were implanted, including 154 bare-metal stents and 118 drug-eluting stents. No patients died in the hospital, and the incidence of major cardiac and cerebrovascular events was 2.3%. After a median of 757 days of follow-up, 0.9% of patients had died and 12.6% required a new revascularization procedure. At the median follow-up point and at 1,818 days, the major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular event-free survival rates were 89.6 and 84.2%, respectively. Independent predictors of events included active smoking and having a left ventricular ejection fraction <50%.

“In conclusion, PCI in young patients [leads] to excellent results in short- and long-term follow-up and should be considered as the treatment of choice,” the authors write. “Traditional risk factors are important prognostic determinants of adverse events and might help identify higher-risk patients within this cohort.”

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