PTCA in Chronic Total Occlusions: Clinical Results with a Wire System

The authors discuss the use of a wire system in chronic total occlusion, not ing the factors that affect primary success and the clinical results. Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty was performed on 29 patients with single- vessel disease. The mean age of the patients was fifty-three ± three years. The authors used routine angioplastic techniques with the wire system. Fifteen of the lesions were functional and the others were in total anatomic occlusion. The primary success rate was 69%. Primary success was 88%, 48%, and 75%, in the left anterior descending, left circumflex, and right coronary artery, respec tively. In 4 cases the wire did not cross the occlusion. One patient required direct-current cardioversion for ventricular fibrillation during the procedure, and 1 patient sustained a non-Q wave myocardial infarction following the pro cedure. There were no deaths.