The impact of viability assessment using cardiac MRI and echocardiogram on the outcome of revascularization in patients with multi-vessels coronary artery disease and moderate to severe ischemic cardiomyopathy

To investigate the influence of viability assessment in the management of patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM). This retrospective cohort study included all patients with ICM with moderate to severely reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) who underwent viability assessment using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and echocardiogram as modalities of imaging. In addition, LVEF, modality of choice, and treatment plans were all extracted as main variables from the electronic database. One hundred 6 patients who met the inclusion criteria from December 2014 to December 2019 were included. Posttreatment LVEF improved by 5% in the viable group compared to the nonviable group ( =0.016). Regardless of the treatment received, 6 (8.8%) patients in the viable group died due to cardiac causes after an 18-month follow-up period; in contrast, 7 (18.4%) patients died due to cardiac causes in the nonviable group. However, despite that difference, this was not statistically significant ( =0.153). Medical therapy alone was observed in 32 (84.2%) patients in the nonviable group compared to 32 (47.1%) in the viable group (