Two-year clinical outcomes of medical therapy vs. revascularization for patients with coronary chronic total occlusion

ObjectivesThere are little data on the long-term clinical outcomes of medical therapy (MT) compared with revascularization in patients with chronic total occlusions (CTOs).MethodsBetween January 2007 and December 2016, a total of 1655 patients with ≥1 CTO were enrolled in our center and were divided into the MT group (n = 800) and revascularization group (n = 855) according to the initial treatment strategy. Propensity score matching was also performed to adjust for baseline characteristics. The primary outcome was cardiac death.ResultsAfter 2 years of follow-up, there was no significant difference between the two groups with regard to the prevalence of cardiac death (MT vs. revascularization: 6.6% vs. 4.2%, adjusted hazard ratio HR] 0.95, 95% confidence interval CI] 0.60–1.49, p = 0.820). In the propensity-matched population (406 pairs), there were no significant differences in the prevalence of cardiac death (MT vs. revascularization: 5.4% vs. 4.7%, HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.48–1.63, p = 0.694), except for target vessel revascularization (TVR) (0.44, 0.31–0.63, <0.001) and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) (0.51, 0.38–0.68, <0.001), between the two groups. There were also no significant differences in the prevalence of cardiac death (MT vs. successful CTO-PCI: 6.6% vs. 4.0%, HR 0.94, 95% CI 0.41–2.15, p = 0.881) between the MT and successful CTO-PCI groups.ConclusionAs an initial management strategy in patients with CTOs, revascularization did not reduce the risk of cardiac death compared with treatment with medical therapy alone. However, revascularization was associated with reduction in the prevalence of TVR and MACE. Furthermore, successful CTO-PCI was also not associated with improved long-term survival compared with MT alone.