Holmes, David R.

Background— Little is known about what treatments patients receive after being diagnosed with stable coronary artery disease or what the comparative outcomes are for routine medical treatment (RMT) versus percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with RMT for patients in a setting apart from randomized controlled trials. Methods and Results— Patients with stable coronary artery disease undergoing cardiac catheterization in New York State between 2003 and 2008 were followed up to determine the treatment they received. Patients receiving RMT and patients receiving PCI with RMT were propensity matched through the use of 20 factors that could have a bearing on outcomes. The resulting cohort of 933 matched pairs was used to compare mortality/myocardial infarction (MI), mortality, MI, and subsequent revascularization rates. A total of 89% of all patients underwent PCI with RMT. PCI/RMT patients had significantly lower adverse outcome rates at 4 years for mortality/MI (16.5% versus 21.2%; P =0.003), mortality (10.2% versus 14.5%; P =0.02), MI (8.0% versus 11.3%; P =0.007), and subsequent revascularization (24.1% versus 29.1%; P =0.005). Adjusted RMT versus (PCI with RMT) hazard ratios were 1.49 (95% confidence interval, 1.16–1.93) for mortality/MI and 1.46 (95% confidence interval, 1.08–1.97) for mortality. There were no differences for patients ≤65 years of age or for patients with single-vessel disease. Conclusions— Most patients with stable coronary artery disease in New York undergoing catheterization between 2003 and 2008 received PCI. Patients who received PCI experienced lower mortality, mortality/MI, and revascularization rates. The reasons for this finding need to be better understood, including the possible role of low medication adherence rates that have been found in other studies.

Studies correlating prosthetic valve gradients determined by continuous wave Doppler echocardiography with gradients obtained by cardiac catheterization have, to date, been limited to patients with mitral and tricuspid prostheses or have compared nonsimultaneous measurements. Simultaneous Doppler and catheter pressure gradients in 36 patients (mean age, 63 +/- 13 years) with 42 prosthetic valves (20 aortic, 20 mitral, one tricuspid, and one pulmonary) were studied. Catheter gradients were obtained using a dual-catheter technique. The simultaneous pressure tracings and Doppler flow velocity profiles were digitized at 10-msec intervals to derive the corresponding maximal and mean gradients. The correlation between the maximal Doppler gradient and the simultaneously measured maximal catheter gradient was 0.94 (SEE = 6), and that between the Doppler gradient and the simultaneously measured mean catheter gradient was 0.96 (SEE = 3). There were no significant differences in correlation between gradients for the 32 mechanical valves (maximal gradients: r = 0.95, SEE = 6; mean gradients: r = 0.96, SEE = 3) and the 10 bioprosthetic valves (maximal gradients: r = 0.89, SEE = 6; mean gradients: r = 0.93, SEE = 3). In patients with mitral prostheses, Doppler gradients correlated well with the corresponding catheter gradients obtained with direct measurement of left atrial pressure (maximal gradients: r = 0.96, SEE = 2; mean gradients: r = 0.97, SEE = 1.2). A close correlation between corresponding Doppler and catheter gradients also was found in patients with aortic prostheses (maximal gradients: r = 0.94, SEE = 6; mean gradients: r = 0.94, SEE = 3). Thus, continuous wave Doppler echocardiography can accurately predict the pressure gradient across prosthetic valves.

Background— Recent studies in animals suggest that circulating recipient endothelial precursors may participate in the biology of transplant vasculopathy. It is currently unknown whether a similar interaction between recipient endothelial cells and the vessel wall occurs in human subjects undergoing allogeneic cardiac transplantation. Methods and Results— Circulating endothelial cells and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) were quantified in 15 cardiac transplantation subjects with and without angiographic evidence of vasculopathy. In a separate series of experiments, the origin (donor or recipient) of transplant plaque endothelial cells was assessed in subjects who had undergone a gender-mismatched cardiac transplantation and had histological evidence of severe vasculopathy at the time of heart explantation. Circulating EPC outgrowth colonies in peripheral blood were significantly reduced in subjects with transplant vasculopathy compared with those without angiographic evidence of disease (EPC colony-forming units [CFU EPC ]: 4.5±1.9 versus 15.1±3.7, P <0.05). There was no significant difference in circulating endothelial cell numbers as defined by day 4 culture acetylated LDL/lectin assay in either of these patient groups. In a separate group of 5 subjects who underwent gender-mismatched cardiac transplantation, there was a significant seeding of recipient endothelial cells (range: 1% to 24% of all luminal endothelial cells) in large-vessel lumen and adventitial microvessel lumen of arteriopathic vessels. No opposite-sex chimeric cells were observed in control gender-matched transplantation scenarios. Conclusions— These data suggest that the human cardiac transplant arteriopathy is associated with reduction in circulating endothelial precursors and with seeding of recipient-derived endothelial cells at the site of plaque development.