“We often talk about the hard, irreversible end points of death, stroke, and MI. These end points do not have the same value as the nuisance of going back for repeat revascularization,” said Dr. Serruys, professor of interventional cardiology at the Thorax Center at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
“Reinterventions still limit PCI, but we're doing better with drug-eluting stents,” commented Dr. Christian W. Hamm, a cardiologist at the Kerckoff Heart Center in Bad Nauheim, Germany.
The 1-year rate of stent thrombosis or graft occlusion was also virtually identical, 3.3% with PCI and 3.4% with CABG.
Future analyses from SYNTAX will examine the relative safety and efficacy of PCI and CABG based on the diabetes status of patients, and based on illness severity, Dr. Serruys said.
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