Abstract
The debate over coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) or percutaneous coronary intervention
(PCI) with stent placement for the treatment of stable multivessel coronary artery
disease (CAD) continues in spite of numerous studies investigating the issue. This
paper reviews the most recent randomized control trials (RCT) and meta-analyses of
pooled RCT data to help address this issue. General trends demonstrated that CABG
was superior in all-cause mortality and fulfilling the need for repeat revascularization.
These advantages tended to be more pronounced in multivessel CAD and diabetes, and
less so in left main CAD. PCI showed a consistently lower rate of cerebrovascular
events. CABG continues to offer significant advantages over PCI, even as drug-eluting
stent technology continues to evolve. The ideal endpoint for comparing PCI and CABG
remains to be determined. Furthermore, additional research is required to further
refine patient selection criteria for each intervention.
Keywords
coronary artery - PCI - stent - cardiac surgery - cardiac catheterization - cardiovascular
disease - myocardial infarction