(UPDATED) Looking once again at a question that many cardiologists considered settled, a new meta-analysis suggests that patients with stable coronary artery disease undergoing elective revascularization are at a lower risk of dying from cardiac causes over the long term when compared with patients treated with medical therapy alone.
The findings, presented today as a late-breaking clinical trial at EuroPCR 2021, and simultaneously published in the
European Heart Journal, seem to fly in the face of the randomized ISCHEMIA trial findings, published last year. In this analysis, the benefit appeared directly related to the duration of follow-up, with investigators reporting that the longer the follow-up, the lower the risk of cardiac death and spontaneous MI among those who underwent PCI or CABG surgery.