Ten-year trends in coronary bifurcation percutaneous coronary intervention: Prognostic effects of patient and lesion characteristics, devices, and techniques

BACKGROUND: Despite advances in devices and techniques, coronary bifurcation lesion remains a challenging lesion subset in the field of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). We evaluate 10-year trends in bifurcation PCI and their effects on patient outcomes. METHODS AND RESULTS: We analyzed 10-year trends in patient/lesion characteristics, devices, PCI strategy, stent optimization techniques, and clinical outcomes using data from 5498 patients who underwent bifurcation PCI from 2004 to 2015. Clinical outcomes 2 years after the index procedure were evaluated in terms of target vessel failure (a composite of cardiac death, myocardial infarction, and target vessel revascularization) and a patient-oriented composite outcome (a composite of all-cause death, myocardial infarction, and any revascularization). During the 10-year study period, patient and lesion complexity, such as multivessel disease, diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, and left main bifurcation, increased continuously (all P<0.001). The risk of target vessel failure or patient-oriented composite outcome decreased continuously from 2004 to 2015 (target vessel failure: from 12.3% to 6.9%, log-rank P<0.001; patient-oriented composite outcome: from 13.6% to 9.3%, log-rank P<0.001). The use of a second-generation drug-eluting stent and decreased target vessel failure risk in true bifurcation lesions were the major contributors to improved patient prognosis (interaction P values were <0.001 and 0.013, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: During the past decade of bifurcation PCI, patient and lesion characteristics, devices, PCI techniques, and patient prognosis have all significantly changed. Despite increased patient and lesion complexity, clinical outcomes after bifurcation PCI have improved, mainly because of better devices and more widespread adoption of procedural optimization techniques and appropriate treatment strategies. REGISTRATION: URL: https://www.clini​caltr​ials.gov; Unique identifiers: NCT01642992 and NCT03068494.