To Örebro University

BACKGROUND: Multisite artery disease is considered a 'malignant' type of atherosclerotic disease associated with an increased cardiovascular risk, but the impact of multisite artery disease on clinical outcomes after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is unknown.

METHODS: Patients enrolled in the large, prospective e-Ultimaster study were grouped into 1) those without known prior vascular disease; 2) those with known single-territory vascular disease 3) those with known 2-3 territories (i.e, coronary, cerebrovascular, or peripheral) vascular disease (multisite artery disease). The primary outcome was coronary target lesion failure (TLF) defined as the composite of cardiac death, target vessel-related myocardial infarction, and clinically driven target lesion revascularization at 1-year. Inverse propensity score weighted (IPSW) analysis was performed to address differences in baseline patient and lesion characteristics.

RESULTS: Of the 37,198 patients included in the study, 62.3% had no prior known vascular disease, 32.6% had single-territory vascular disease, and 5.1% multisite artery disease. Patients with known vascular disease were older and were more likely to be men and to have more co-morbidities. After IPSW, the TLF rate incrementally increased with the number of diseased vascular beds (3.16%, 4.44% and 6.42% for no, single- and multisite artery disease, p<0.01 for all comparisons). This was also true for all cause death (2.22%, 3.28% and 5.29%, p<0.01 for all comparisons) and cardiac mortality (1.26%, 1.91% and 3.62%, p≤0.01 for all comparisons).

CONCLUSIONS: Patients with previously known vascular disease experienced an increased risk for adverse cardiovascular events and mortality post percutaneous coronary intervention. This risk is highest among patients with multisite artery disease.