Almanac 2012: Interventional cardiology

Abstract

The field of interventional cardiology continues to progress quickly. The efficacy of percutaneous interventions with newer generation drug-eluting stents has advanced a lot over the last decade. This improvement in stent performance has broadened the level of indication towards more complex interventions such as left main and multivessel PCI. Major improvements continue in the field of medical co-therapy such as antiplatelet therapies (bivalirudin, prasugrel, ticagrelor) and this will further improve outcomes of PCI. The same is true for intravascular imaging such as ultrasound IVUS and optical coherence tomography OCT. However, interventional cardiology has become a rather broad field, also including alcohol septal ablation for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, etc. At the moment, the fastest growing area is the structural interventions, especially for aortic valve stenosis (transcatheter aortic valve implantation TAVI) and for mitral regurgitation (mitral clipping). This review covers recent advances in all these different fields of interventional cardiology. PERCUTANEOUS CORONARY INTERVENTION VERSUS MEDICAL TREATMENTPercutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has guideline recommendations for treatment of ST elevation and non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (MI). 1 However, its role in stable coronary disease has been the subject of reappraisal following publication of the COURAGE trial, which showed that, in patients receiving optimal medical therapy, PCI does not improve cardiovascular outcomes, while incremental benefits for quality of life disappear by 36 months. A more recent meta-analysis of eight trials of optimal medical therapy versus PCI involving 7229 patients bears out the COURAGE conclusions by showing no significant differences between the groups with regard to death (9.1% vs 8.9%), non-fatal MI (8.1% vs 8.9%), unplanned revascularisation (30.7% vs 21.4%) and persistent angina (33% vs 29%).4 Drug-eluting stents (DESs) were used in only a minority of these patients and may have reduced the need for further revascularisation while improving symptomatic responses. Nevertheless, the meta-analysis reinforces contemporary guideline advice for optimal medical treatment as the initial treatment for stable angina.