Early and late outcomes of coronary artery bypass surgery versus percutaneous coronary intervention with drug-eluting stents for dialysis patients

Background: Advances in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) using drug-eluting stents (DES) have impacted clinical practice. However, the efficacy of DES for dialysis patients still remains controversial. This study compares the early and long-term clinical outcomes of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and PCI with DES in dialysis patients. Methods: A retrospective review was performed in 125 dialysis patients treated between 2004 and 2007. Fifty-eight patients underwent CABG and 67 underwent PCI with DES. The overall death, cardiac death, and cardiac-related event rates were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method. For the risk-adjusted comparisons, multivariable logistic and Cox regression analyses were used. Results: The preoperative characteristics of the patients were similar except for the ejection fraction (p = 0.002) and the number of diseased vessels (p < 0.001). The 30-day mortality was 0 in both groups. The overall survival rates at one, three, and five years were 84.2%, 64.7%, and 56.2% in CABG group and 88.2%, 75.5%, and 61.7% in DES group, respectively (p = 0.202). The rates of freedom from cardiac-related events at one, three, and five years were 76.6%, 68.1%, and 48.6%, and 63.0%, 31.4%, and 0% in CABG and DES groups (p < 0.001), respectively, including seven (10%) late thromboses in the DES group. Although the risk-adjusted analysis showed no significant difference for overall and cardiac death rates, the rates of cardiac-related events and graft/stent failure were significantly higher in the DES group. Conclusions: CABG is superior for revascularization in dialysis patients compared with PCI using DES in terms of freedom from cardiac-related events.