Transradial Coronary Intervention Versus Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting for Unprotected Left Main and/or Multivessel Disease in Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome

The overall safety and efficacy of transradial coronary intervention (TRI) versus coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) for patients with unprotected left main (UPLM) disease and/or multivessel coronary disease (MVD) presenting with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) have not been established. Consecutive patients with ACS undergoing TRI with drug-eluting stent (n = 1431) or CABG (n = 651) for UPLM and/or MVD were included. A propensity-score matching was performed to adjust for differences in baseline characteristics between the 2 cohorts, yielding 524 pairs of matched patients. Median clinical follow-up was 32 months. After propensity-score adjustment, no significant difference was observed between the TRI and CABG groups in all-cause mortality (4.0% vs 5.2%; P = .375). Transradial coronary intervention was favored by a significant increase in the incidence of stroke in the CABG group (0.4% vs 1.9%; P = .020), whereas a significantly increased target vessel revascularization rate (16.8% vs 6.3%; P < .0001) observed in the TRI group favored CABG. Composite outcome (death/myocardial infarction/stroke) was comparable between the TRI and the CABG groups (8.0% vs 11.5%; P = .061). Clinical outcomes of TRI on UPLM and/or MVD for patients with ACS are comparable to CABG in composite safety outcomes with the advantage to TRI for avoiding a stroke.