Characteristics and outcome of medical nonadherers in the Veterans Administration Cooperative Study of Coronary Artery Surgery.
During a 7-year follow-up period in the Veterans Administration Study of Bypass Surgery, 75 (24%) of 311 medically assigned patients without left main disease "crossed over" to surgical treatment. Nineteen baseline, clinical, electrocardiographic and angiographic characteristics of the 75 crossover patients were compared with those of the 236 patients who adhered to medical treatment. At entry into the study, the crossover group contained more patients with severe angina than did the medical adherers group (p less than 0.05) and fewer patients with electrocardiographic evidence of previous myocardial infarction (p less than 0.05). Other entry characteristics were similar in distribution among those in the medical-adherer and crossover groups. The 2 major reasons for crossover were persistence or progression of angina, which occurred in 43 and 37% of the 75 crossover patients, respectively. There was no relation between progression of symptoms and angiographic progression of coronary narrowing. Thus, crossover was not determined by more severe coronary narrowing, but was associated with more severe symptoms and a lower incidence of infarction. The medically randomized patients who later underwent surgery (medical "nonadherers") experienced the same relief of angina 1 year after surgery as did the surgically randomized patients who initially received surgery (surgical "adherers"); however, their overall 7-year survival was lower (77% for medical nonadherers vs 83% for surgical adherers; difference not significant).
D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000601:surgery*; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D009026:Mortality