Background: The lack of a specific counteragent to bivalirudin may complicate the management of patients with coronary artery (CA) perforation during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).
Aim: Assess outcomes of patients with CA perforation from three PCI trials comparing intravenous bivalirudin with provisional glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa inhibition versus unfractionated heparin (UFH) plus GP IIb/IIIa.
Methods: A pooled analysis of patients treated with PCI in three randomized trials including REPLACE-2, ACUITY, and HORIZONS-AMI.
Results: Among a total of 12,921 patients, CA perforation occurred in 35 patients (0.27%). By multivariable analysis, baseline creatinine clearance was the only independent predictor of CA perforation (per 10 mL/min decrease, odds ratio [95% confidence interval]= 1.28 [1.11, 1.47], P = 0.0007). At 30 days, patients with versus without CA perforation had significantly (all P values < or =0.001) higher rates of 30-day mortality (11.4% vs. 1.0%), myocardial infarction (MI) [Q wave: 22.9% vs. 5.7%; non-Q wave: 17.1% vs. 4.9%], target vessel revascularization (TVR) [20.1% vs. 1.8%], and composite end-point of death/MI/TVR (31.4% vs. 7.8%). Patients assigned to bivalirudin versus UFH plus a GP IIb/IIIa inhibitor had nonsignificantly lower rates of death (0% vs. 18.8%, P = 0.08), similar rates of MI (26.7% vs. 25.0%, P = 0.92), significantly lower rates of TVR (6.7% vs. 37.5%, P = 0.04), and similar rates of the composite end-point of death/MI/TVR (35.5% vs. 26.7%, P = 0.54).
Conclusion: In three PCI trials, treatment of patients experiencing CA perforation with adjunctive antithrombotic therapy of bivalirudin monotherapy was not associated with worse outcomes compared to treatment with UFH plus GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors.