Background: Little is known about the impact of technological and pharmacological advances on long-term outcome after percutaneous coronary intervention in general clinical practice.
Methods and results: We analyzed in-hospital and long-term outcome of 24,410 percutaneous coronary interventions among 18,575 unique patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention at Mayo Clinic over 25 years. The study population was divided into group 1 (n=3708), coronary interventions from 1979 to 1989; group 2 (n=7020), interventions from 1990 to 1996; group 3 (n=10,952), interventions from 1996 to 2003; and group 4 (n=2730), interventions from 2003 to 2004. Despite the fact that patients in groups 3 and 4 were significantly older, sicker, and had greater prevalence of comorbid conditions, heart failure, and previous revascularization than those in groups 1 and 2, procedural success in groups 3 and 4 improved significantly (94%) versus groups 2 (89%) and 1 (78%) (P<0.001). Significant reduction in in-hospital mortality (groups 4 to 1: 1.8%, 1.7%, 2.6%, 3.0%; P<0.001) and need for emergency bypass surgery (groups 4 to 1: 0.4%, 0.5%, 1.6%, 5%; P<0.001) was noted in groups 3 and 4 compared with groups 1 and 2. Better adherence to currently recommended evidence-based medications for secondary prevention was seen in the recent time periods. After adjustment, significant reduction in follow-up mortality (hazard ratio, 0.81 and 0.74 for groups 3 and 4, respectively); death or myocardial infarction (hazard ratio, 0.80 and 0.75 for groups 3 and 4, respectively); death, myocardial infarction, or revascularization (hazard ratio, 0.76 and 0.58 for groups 3 and 4, respectively) was noted in recent time periods.
Conclusions: Despite higher-risk profiles of patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention in recent time periods, procedural success as well as in-hospital and long-term outcomes improved significantly over the last 25 years.