ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND - Adjunctive coronary atherectomy (CA) can be utilized in treating severely calcified coronary lesions; however, the temporal trends, patient selection, and variation in use of CA have not been well described. We sought to assess the trends in usage, interhospital variability, and outcomes with CA among patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

METHODS - All patients undergoing PCI in the National Cardiovascular Data Registry CathPCI Registry from July 1, 2009 to December 31, 2016 (N=3 864 377) were analyzed based on utilization of either rotational or orbital CA. Intervals using date of index CA grouped into 2009 Q3 to 2010, 2011 to 2012, 2013 to 2014, and 2015 to 2016 and hospital-level quartiles based on annual CA volumes were evaluated. The primary outcome measure was in-hospital major adverse cardiac events defined as a composite of all-cause mortality, periprocedural myocardial infarction, or stroke. Independent variables associated with outcomes were determined.

RESULTS - CA represented 1.7% (n=65 033) of the total PCI volume. Among hospitals performing PCI (n=1672), 577 (34.5%) did not perform any CA. Patients treated with CA were elderly, more often male, and had a history of diabetes, prior myocardial infarction, PCI, and coronary artery bypass grafting. The utilization of CA increased from 1.1% in Q3 2009 to 3.0% in Q4 of 2016 (5% quarterly increase in odds of CA; OR [95% CI], 1.05 [1.04–1.06], P<0.001). Among patients undergoing CA, there was a temporal decline in major adverse cardiac events (0.98 [0.97–0.99], P<0.001) and myocardial infarction (0.97 [0.96–0.98], P<0.001). In adjusted analyses, increasing hospital CA volume was associated with lower mortality (0.85 [0.76–0.96], P=0.01) and lower rates of PCI failure or complication requiring coronary artery bypass grafting (0.67 [0.56–0.79], P<0.001) but was associated with small increase in coronary perforation (1.18 [1.04–1.35], P<0.01).

CONCLUSIONS - Although CA is performed infrequently, its use has increased over time. After accounting for potential confounders, higher CA volume was associated with lower risk of major adverse events counterbalanced by small risk of coronary perforation.