Background: For patients needing coronary chronic total occlusion (CTO) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), a planned, staged intervention has been recommended by experts. Ad hoc CTO-PCI, however, occurs in practice.
Methods: Observational, contemporary, multicenter, international registry. Our goals were to determine the frequency, characteristics, procedural techniques, and outcomes of patients who underwent ad hoc vs planned CTO-PCI.
Results: Among 2282 patients who underwent CTO-PCI between 2012 and 2017, 318 (14%) were ad hoc. Patients undergoing ad hoc CTO-PCI had lower J-CTO, PROGRESS CTO, and PROGRESS Complications scores. Antegrade-wire escalation was used more often in ad hoc PCI (96% vs 81%; P<.001), whereas antegrade-dissection re-entry (22% vs 32%) and retrograde approaches (14% vs 38%) were more common in planned PCI (P<.001). There was no difference in ad hoc vs planned PCI in technical (85% vs 86%) and procedural success (84% vs 84%). In-hospital major adverse cardiac events (MACE) were more common in patients who underwent planned procedures (0.6% vs 2.9%; P=.02). Multivariable analyses showed that ad hoc CTO-PCI was not associated with technical success or MACE.
Conclusions: Ad hoc CTO-PCI occurs more commonly in less complex lesions and is associated with similarly high success rates as planned CTO-PCI in lower J-CTO score lesions, suggesting that ad hoc CTO-PCI may be an acceptable option for experienced hybrid operators in carefully selected cases. Complex cases, as quantified by the J-CTO score, have a higher in-hospital MACE rate and should preferably be performed following proper planning and preparation.
Keywords: calcification; chronic total occlusion; high-risk PCI.