For patients with two or more diseased coronary arteries, CABG is associated with higher adjusted rates of long-term survival than stenting.

Background-The importance of completeness of revascularization by percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with multivessel disease is unclear in that there is little information on the impact of incomplete revascularization outside of randomized trials. The objective of this study is to compare long-term mortality and subsequent revascularization for percutaneous coronary intervention patients receiving stents who were completely revascularized (CR) with those who were incompletely revascularized (IR). Methods and Results-Patients from New York State's Percutaneous Coronary Interventions Reporting System were subdivided into patients who were CR and IR. Then subsets of IR patients were contrasted with CR patients. Differences in long-term survival and subsequent revascularization for CR and IR patients were compared after adjustment for differences in preprocedural risk. A total of 68.9% of all stent patients with multivessel disease who were studied were IR, and 30.1% of all patients had total occlusions and/or Ն2 IR vessels. At baseline, the following patients were at higher risk: those who were older and those with more comorbid conditions, worse ejection fraction, and more renal disease and stroke. After adjustment for these baseline differences, IR patients were significantly more likely to die at any time (adjusted hazard ratioϭ1.15; 95% confidence interval, 1.01 to 1.30) than CR patients. IR patients with total occlusions and a total of Ն2 IR vessels were at the highest risk compared with CR patients (hazard ratioϭ1.36; 95% confidence interval, 1.12 to 1.66). Conclusions-IR with stenting is associated with an adverse impact on long-term mortality, and consideration should be given to either achieving CR, opting for surgery, or monitoring percutaneous coronary intervention patients with IR more closely after discharge. (Circulation. 2006;113:2406-2412.)