Percutaneous Coronary Intervention With Drug-Eluting Stent Versus Optimal Medical Therapy for Chronic Total Occlusion: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The optimal treatment strategy for coronary chronic total occlusion (CTO) has not been well established. The benefit of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was inferred mainly from observational studies comparing successful versus failed PCI without a control group receiving optimal medical therapy (OMT). We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies comparing PCI using drug-eluting stent (DES) versus OMT alone in patients with CTO. Eight studies were identified: 3 RCTs and 5 observational studies. Among a total of 4784 included patients, 2461 patients underwent PCI and 2323 patients received OMT. There was a significant association between PCI and lower cardiac mortality (odds ratio = 0.62; 95% confidence interval 0.42-0.93; P = .02). There was no significant difference between PCI and OMT regarding major adverse cardiac events, recurrent myocardial infarction (MI), repeat revascularization, or stroke. In the RCT subset (1399 patients), there was no significant difference between PCI and OMT regarding clinical outcomes. Compared with OMT alone, PCI with DES for CTO was associated with lower cardiac mortality, mainly driven by observational studies, without significant difference in recurrent MI or repeated revascularization. Further RCTs are needed to investigate the role of PCI for management of patients with CTO.