The use and clinical outcomes of rotablation in challenging cases in the drug-eluting stent era.
BACKGROUND
Rotational atherectomy (RA) has been advocated in the bare metal stent (BMS) era but is underused now due to technique demands and nonsuperior outcomes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the procedural and clinical outcomes of patients with very complex, severely calcified coronary lesions treated by RA and drug-eluting stents (DESs) in our current percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) practice in a region where RA use has been limited by lack of insurance reimbursement.


METHODS
From March 2004 to November 2010, all consecutive patients who required RA treatment for severely calcified de novo lesions of native coronary arteries followed by DES implantation were queried from the cath lab database and recruited. Their clinical and angiographic characteristics at the index PCI were analyzed and completed by a thorough review of the medical charts.


RESULTS
A total of 67 consecutive patients with 71 very complex, heavily calcified coronary lesions treated with RA plus DES were recruited. Of these patients, 64% presented with acute coronary syndrome, 9.0% with cardiogenic shock, 43.3% with chronic renal failure, and 50.7% with diabetes. Multiple-vessel diseases were found in 92.5% of our patients, and the average coronary artery calcification (CAC) score was 3.6±1.4. Of the coronary lesions, 26.7% were either balloon-uncrossable or balloon-undilatable. The angiographic success rate was 100% with one non-Q myocardial infarction. Five patients (7.5%) died in hospital, all initially presenting with extensive myocardial infarction and/or cardiogenic shock. The out-of-hospital major adverse cardiac event was 17.9% at the mean follow-up of 23.2 months (range: 5-86), primarily due to high target-lesion revascularization and target-vessel revascularization rates of 10.4% and 10.4%, respectively. Only one (1.5%) probable subacute stent thrombosis was observed in the follow-up.


CONCLUSIONS
RA with DES implantation in very complex, heavily calcified coronary lesions can achieve very low complication and low out-of-hospital major adverse cardiac event rates even in high-risk patients despite use limited by lack of insurance reimbursement. The study results convince us to sustain and even broaden the use of this novel, but underused, device in the DES era.
Cardiovascular Center, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC.
Meng-Hsiu
MH
Chiang
Wen-Lieng
WL
Lee
Cheng-Rong
CR
Tsao
Wei-Chun
WC
Chang
Chieh-Shou
CS
Su
Tsun-Jui
TJ
Liu
Kae-Woei
KW
Liang
Chih-Tai
CT
Ting
D000368:Aged; D017225:Atherectomy, Coronary / Q000379:methods*; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D054855:Drug-Eluting Stents; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D062645:Percutaneous Coronary Intervention; D061205:Vascular Calcification / Q000628:therapy*