May 21, 2021
Treating chronic total occlusions (CTOs), complex bifurcations, heavily calcified lesions, and left main coronary artery disease with large-bore catheters via the radial artery is associated with significantly less access-site bleeding and fewer vascular complications when compared with femoral access, according to the results of the COLOR study.
Researchers say the findings lend further support to performing PCI via the radial artery, this time in the types of complex coronary lesions that have typically been excluded from randomized clinical trials.
“I hope that physicians who are still femoral artery-oriented for complex PCI should move on and use this data to start performing CTOs and other complex procedures with radial access in order to treat these patients safer,” senior investigator Maarten van Leeuwen, MD, PhD (Isala Heart Center, Zwolle, the Netherlands), told TCTMD.