Long-Term Outcomes of Coronary-Artery Bypass Grafting versus Stent Implantation

Several studies have compared outcomes for coronary-artery bypass grafting (CABG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), but most were done before the availability of stenting, which has revolutionized the latter approach.

We used New York's cardiac registries to identify 37,212 patients with multivessel disease who underwent CABG and 22,102 patients with multivessel disease who underwent PCI from January 1, 1997, to December 31, 2000. We determined the rates of death and subsequent revascularization within three years after the procedure in various groups of patients according to the number of diseased vessels and the presence or absence of involvement of the left anterior descending coronary artery. The rates of adverse outcomes were adjusted by means of proportional-hazards methods to account for differences in patients' severity of illness before revascularization.