Skip to main content
Log in

Operator Experience and Outcomes After Left Main Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

  • Ischemic Heart Disease (D Mukherjee, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Cardiology Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

This review was performed with the goal of summarizing the role of operator experience in the treatment of severe left main stenosis by percutaneous intervention techniques.

Recent Findings

The Evaluation of XIENCE versus Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery for Effectiveness of Left Main Revascularization (EXCEL) trial demonstrated that percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass grafting had similar clinical outcomes for severe left main disease. However, PCI of the left main coronary stenosis is considered to be a high-risk intervention because of the large area of myocardium at jeopardy that can quickly cause hemodynamic compromise. Operator experience and familiarity with the use of hemodynamic support devices, plaque modification techniques, and intravascular imaging tools is associated with better clinical outcomes.

Summary

In patients with severe left main stenosis undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention by high-volume operators, the clinical outcomes are superior.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: •• Of major importance

  1. DeMots H, Rosch J, McAnulty JH, Rahimtoola SH. Left main coronary artery disease. Cardiovasc Clin. 1977;8(2):201–11.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Ruparelia N, Chieffo A. Left main percutaneous coronary intervention. Interv Cardiol Clin. 2016;5(2):125–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iccl.2015.12.001.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Lee PH, Ahn JM, Chang M, Baek S, Yoon SH, Kang SJ, et al. Left main coronary artery disease: secular trends in patient characteristics, treatments, and outcomes. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2016;68(11):1233–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2016.05.089.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Ragosta M, Dee S, Sarembock IJ, Lipson LC, Gimple LW, Powers ER. Prevalence of unfavorable angiographic characteristics for percutaneous intervention in patients with unprotected left main coronary artery disease. Catheter Cardiovasc Interv. 2006;68(3):357–62. https://doi.org/10.1002/ccd.20709.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. •• Makikallio T, Holm NR, Lindsay M, Spence MS, Erglis A, Menown IB, et al. Percutaneous coronary angioplasty versus coronary artery bypass grafting in treatment of unprotected left main stenosis (NOBLE): a prospective, randomised, open-label, non-inferiority trial. Lancet. 2016;388(10061):2743–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)32052-9. This randomized trial compared percutaneous coronary intervention vs coronary artery bypass grafting for severe left main stenosis and concluded that coronary artery bypass grafting was superior to percutaneous coronary intervention at 5 years.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. •• Stone GW, Sabik JF, Serruys PW, Simonton CA, Genereux P, Puskas J, et al. Everolimus-eluting stents or bypass surgery for left main coronary artery disease. N Engl J Med. 2016;375(23):2223–35. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1610227. This randomized trial compared percutaneous coronary intervention vs coronary artery bypass grafting for severe left main stenosis and concluded that there was no difference between the two treatment arms at 3 years.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. De la Torre Hernandez JM, Garcia Camarero T. Intravascular ultrasound for the diagnosis and treatment of left main coronary artery disease. Interv Cardiol Clin. 2015;4(3):361–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iccl.2015.02.002.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Tian J, Guan C, Wang W, Zhang K, Chen J, Wu Y, et al. Intravascular ultrasound guidance improves the long-term prognosis in patients with unprotected left main coronary artery disease undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention. Sci Rep. 2017;7(1):2377. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02649-5.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Ye Y, Yang M, Zhang S, Zeng Y. Percutaneous coronary intervention in left main coronary artery disease with or without intravascular ultrasound: a meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2017;12(6):e0179756. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179756.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  10. Fan ZG, Gao XF, Li XB, Shao MX, Gao YL, Chen SL, et al. The outcomes of intravascular ultrasound-guided drug-eluting stent implantation among patients with complex coronary lesions: a comprehensive meta-analysis of 15 clinical trials and 8,084 patients. Anatol J Cardiol. 2017;17(4):258–68. https://doi.org/10.14744/AnatolJCardiol.2016.7461.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. Kang SJ, Ahn JM, Song H, Kim WJ, Lee JY, Park DW, et al. Comprehensive intravascular ultrasound assessment of stent area and its impact on restenosis and adverse cardiac events in 403 patients with unprotected left main disease. Circ Cardiovasc Interv. 2011;4(6):562–9. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCINTERVENTIONS.111.964643.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Murray SW, Stables RH, Hart G, Palmer ND. Defining the magnitude of measurement variability in the virtual histology analysis of acute coronary syndrome plaques. Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging. 2013;14(2):167–74. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehjci/jes138.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. •• Xu B, Redfors B, Yang Y, Qiao S, Wu Y, Chen J, et al. Impact of operator experience and volume on outcomes after left main coronary artery percutaneous coronary intervention. JACC Cardiovasc Interv. 2016;9(20):2086–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcin.2016.08.011. This study demonstrated that operators with greater experience and volumes had better clinical outcomes for left main percutaneous coronary interventions.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Fujii K, Mintz GS, Kobayashi Y, Carlier SG, Takebayashi H, Yasuda T, et al. Contribution of stent underexpansion to recurrence after sirolimus-eluting stent implantation for in-stent restenosis. Circulation. 2004;109(9):1085–8. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.CIR.0000121327.67756.19.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Schreiber T, Wah Htun W, Blank N, Telila T, Mercado N, Briasoulis A, et al. Real-world supported unprotected left main percutaneous coronary intervention with impella device; data from the USpella registry. Catheter Cardiovasc Interv. 2017;90:576–81. https://doi.org/10.1002/ccd.26979.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Sjauw KD, Konorza T, Erbel R, Danna PL, Viecca M, Minden HH, et al. Supported high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention with the Impella 2.5 device the Europella registry. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2009;54(25):2430–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2009.09.018.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Alkhatib B, Wolfe L, Naidu SS. Hemodynamic support devices for complex percutaneous coronary intervention. Interv Cardiol Clin. 2016;5(2):187–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iccl.2015.12.004.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Kar B, Adkins LE, Civitello AB, Loyalka P, Palanichamy N, Gemmato CJ, et al. Clinical experience with the TandemHeart percutaneous ventricular assist device. Tex Heart Inst J. 2006;33(2):111–5.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  19. O’Neill WW, Kleiman NS, Moses J, Henriques JP, Dixon S, Massaro J, et al. A prospective, randomized clinical trial of hemodynamic support with Impella 2.5 versus intra-aortic balloon pump in patients undergoing high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention: the PROTECT II study. Circulation. 2012;126(14):1717–27. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.112.098194.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Tomasello SD, Boukhris M, Ganyukov V, Galassi AR, Shukevich D, Haes B, et al. Outcome of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support for complex high-risk elective percutaneous coronary interventions: a single-center experience. Heart Lung. 2015;44(4):309–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrtlng.2015.03.005.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Badheka AO, Patel NJ, Grover P, Singh V, Patel N, Arora S, et al. Impact of annual operator and institutional volume on percutaneous coronary intervention outcomes: a 5-year United States experience (2005–2009). Circulation. 2014;130(16):1392–406. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.114.009281.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Fanaroff AC, Zakroysky P, Dai D, Wojdyla D, Sherwood MW, Roe MT, et al. Outcomes of PCI in relation to procedural characteristics and operator volumes in the United States. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2017;69(24):2913–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2017.04.032.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Toyofuku M, Kimura T, Morimoto T, Hayashi Y, Ueda H, Kawai K, et al. Three-year outcomes after sirolimus-eluting stent implantation for unprotected left main coronary artery disease: insights from the j-Cypher registry. Circulation. 2009;120(19):1866–74. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.873349.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Palmerini T, Sangiorgi D, Marzocchi A, Tamburino C, Sheiban I, Margheri M, et al. Ostial and midshaft lesions vs. bifurcation lesions in 1111 patients with unprotected left main coronary artery stenosis treated with drug-eluting stents: results of the survey from the Italian Society of Invasive Cardiology. Eur Heart J. 2009;30(17):2087–94. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehp223.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Nguyen-Trong PJ, Martinez Parachini JR, Resendes E, Karatasakis A, Danek BA, Alame A, et al. Procedural outcomes with use of the flash ostial system in aorto-coronary ostial lesions. Catheter Cardiovasc Interv. 2016;88(7):1067–74. https://doi.org/10.1002/ccd.26613.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arun Kanmanthareddy.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

Arun Kanmanthareddy, Dixitha Anugula, and Biswajit Kar declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Ischemic Heart Disease

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kanmanthareddy, A., Anugula, D. & Kar, B. Operator Experience and Outcomes After Left Main Percutaneous Coronary Intervention. Curr Cardiol Rep 20, 29 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11886-018-0972-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11886-018-0972-0

Keywords

Navigation