Ischemic Burden Reduction and Long-Term Clinical Outcomes After Chronic Total Occlusion Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

The authors sought to evaluate the impact of ischemic burden reduction after chronic total occlusion (CTO) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) on long-term prognosis and cardiac symptom relief. The clinical benefit of CTO PCI is questioned. In a high-volume CTO PCI center, 212 patients prospectively underwent quantitative [ O]H O positron emission tomography perfusion imaging before and three months after successful CTO PCI between 2013-2019. Perfusion defects (PD) (in segments) and hyperemic myocardial blood flow (hMBF) (in ml · min · g ) allocated to CTO areas were related to prognostic outcomes using unadjusted (Kaplan-Meier curves, log-rank test) and risk-adjusted (multivariable Cox regression) analyses. The prognostic endpoint was a composite of all-cause death and nonfatal myocardial infarction. After a median [interquartile range] of 2.8 years [1.8 to 4.3 years], event-free survival was superior in patients with ≥3 versus