Boden, William E.

Introduction: The benefits of optimal medical therapy (OMT) with or without percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery have been evaluated in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and stable coronary artery disease (CAD) but analyses have not been stratified by detailed angiographic CAD burden or left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). Methods: A patient-level meta-analysis was undertaken among T2DM patients enrolled in COURAGE, BARI 2D and FREEDOM to assess the impact of randomization to OMT, PCI + OMT, or CABG + OMT on a composite end-point of Death/MI/Stroke and stratified by LVEF (≥ 50%, < 50%), 1, 2 or 3 vessel disease (VD) (% diameter stenosis ≥ 50%) and presence or absence of proximal left anterior descending (pLAD) disease. Hazard ratios (HR) for treatment groups were calculated from Cox regression models including all patients adjusting for trial and revascularization stratum in BARI 2D. Multivariable adjustment for risk factors was performed as a sensitivity analysis. Results: There were 5,034 patients included in the analysis (BARI 2D: n=2,368, COURAGE: n=766, FREEDOM: n=1,900) of whom 17% had LVEF < 50%, 29% had pLAD, and 77% had 2 or 3 VD. A total of 1,591 patients were randomized to OMT alone, 2,118 to PCI + OMT, and 1,325 to CABG + OMT. There were 1,116 events during a median 4.5 year follow-up. There was no significant effect on outcomes with OMT vs PCI + OMT irrespective of LVEF, presence/absence of pLAD and number of VD. By contrast, CABG + OMT significantly reduced the risk of Death/MI/Stroke in patients with 2 or 3 VD, irrespective of LVEF and presence/absence of pLAD (see Table). Results were similar with multivariable adjustment. Conclusions: In patients with T2DM and stable CAD, OMT alone appears to be as effective as PCI + OMT while CABG + OMT significantly reduces cardiovascular events in those with multivessel CAD, irrespective of LVEF or presence of pLAD.

Background— There is a paucity of randomized trials regarding diagnostic testing in women with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). It remains unclear whether the addition of myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) to the standard ECG exercise treadmill test (ETT) provides incremental information to improve clinical decision making in women with suspected CAD. Methods and Results— We randomized symptomatic women with suspected CAD, an interpretable ECG, and ≥5 metabolic equivalents on the Duke Activity Status Index to 1 of 2 diagnostic strategies: ETT or exercise MPI. The primary end point was 2-year incidence of major adverse cardiac events, defined as CAD death or hospitalization for an acute coronary syndrome or heart failure. A total of 824 women were randomized to ETT or exercise MPI. For women randomized to ETT, ECG results were normal in 64%, indeterminate in 16%, and abnormal in 20%. By comparison, the exercise MPI results were normal in 91%, mildly abnormal in 3%, and moderate to severely abnormal in 6%. At 2 years, there was no difference in major adverse cardiac events (98.0% for ETT and 97.7% for MPI; P =0.59). Compared with ETT, index testing costs were higher for exercise MPI ( P <0.001), whereas downstream procedural costs were slightly lower ( P =0.0008). Overall, the cumulative diagnostic cost savings was 48% for ETT compared with exercise MPI ( P <0.001). Conclusions— In low-risk, exercising women, a diagnostic strategy that uses ETT versus exercise MPI yields similar 2-year posttest outcomes while providing significant diagnostic cost savings. The ETT with selective follow-up testing should be considered as the initial diagnostic strategy in symptomatic women with suspected CAD. Clinical Trial Registration— http://www.clinicaltrials.gov . Unique identifier: NCT00282711.