Aggressive CTO PCI strategy improved the success rate but not clinical outcomes for coronary chronic total occlusion patients : Korean single center experience

Abstract Background Successful coronary chronic total occlusion (CTO) recanalization was well associated with lesion characteristics, technique and devices development. Indeed, the operators’ experience and new device usage are also associated with success rate. There is few data whether this technical advancement and/or new therapeutic strategy adoption influence the procedural success rate between Japan and Korea. Purpose This study sought to compare the success rate and its clinical outcome between aggressive strategy (joint PCI with Japanese CTO experts, never give up strategy) who adopted new devices and technology and conventional strategy in a Korean single center. Methods A total of 670 target lesions underwent PCI at a single center between September 1999 and February 2020, divided into conventional strategy (control group, n = 508) and aggressive strategy (Joint-PCI group, n = 162) before COVID pandemic period. Primary endpoint was procedural success rate, defined as