Academic Editors: Federico Ronco and Jochen Wöhrle
Symptom relief is currently the main indication to perform percutaneous coronary
intervention (PCI) of chronic total occlusion (CTO). So far, none of the
randomized trials for CTO treatment have demonstrated improved survival after
PCI compared to optimal medical treatment (OMT) alone. We investigated whether
CTO PCI in addition to OMT could improve survival over OMT alone. Data of 1004
patients with a treated CTO was analysed. Patients with acute coronary syndrome
and who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) were excluded, thus
final study population was 378. According to the treatment received, patients
were divided into two groups: CTO PCI + OMT (n = 163) and OMT alone (n = 215).
The primary endpoint was all-cause mortality during follow-up. The incidence of
myocardial infarction (MI), revascularization (both CTO artery and non-CTO artery
related) and stroke were also analysed as a secondary outcome. The mean follow-up
period was 3.55