The lack of a simple relation between physician's percutaneous coronary intervention volume and outcomes in the era of coronary stenting: a two-centre experience.

Full Abstract

The 2001 ACC/AHA guidelines recommend that percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) operators perform at least 75 procedures per year to maintain their competency. We performed a post hoc analysis of prospectively gathered PCI data, in the current era of ubiquitous stent use, at two tertiary cardiac care centres. Operators were assigned to a low (<50 cases per year), intermediate (50-74 cases per year) or high volume (>or=75 cases per year) group. Complications evaluated were death, myocardial infarction, coronary perforation, emergent coronary artery bypass surgery and pericardial tamponade. Between 2000 and 2002, 51 operators performed 6,510 PCIs. Stents were used in 79% of cases. Major complications occurred in 0.45% (7/1,572 cases) for the low-volume group, 1.1% in the intermediate-volume group (16/1,438 cases) and 0.86% (30/3,500 cases) for the high-volume group. After adjusting for baseline factors, low- and intermediate-volume operators were not significantly associated with major complications. This study questions the relationship between operator volume and PCI complications in the current era.

Author information

Author/s: Mustafa, M U (MU); Cohen, M (M); Zapotulko, K (K); Feinberg, M (M); Miller, M F (MF); Aueron, F (F); Wasty, N (N); Tanwir, A (A); Rogal, G (G);

Affiliation: Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, The HEART Hospital of New Jersey, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, USA.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Multicenter Study

Journal: International journal of clinical practice (Int J Clin Pract), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2005-Dec; vol 59 (issue 12) : pp 1401-7

Dates: Created 2005/12/14; Completed 2006/05/25; Revised 2007/02/14;

PMID: 16351671, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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