Surgical or percutaneous coronary revascularization for heart failure: an in silico model using routinely collected health data to emulate a clinical trial

Digital twins for the era of personalized surgery

Digital twins can aid surgeons in training and in performing interventions with greater awareness and precision. The range and variety of digital twins in surgery are described, and their use across perioperative care is discussed. While largely experimental, they are beginning to show promise for the enhancement of personalized, adaptive, and data-driven surgical care. Issues relevant to the greater adoption and deployment of digital twins are all considered.

Novel diagnostic biomarkers regulating macrophages autophagy in ischemic cardiomyopathy: An analysis integrating bulk RNA sequencing with single-cell RNA sequencing

Macrophage autophagy plays a pivotal role in ischemia cardiomyopathy (ICM). However, the underlying mechanisms and macrophage autophagy-related biomarkers in ICM have not been elucidated. Therefore, this study was designed to explore novel macrophage autophagy-related biomarkers for ICM. The autophagy-related genes were downloaded from the Human Autophagy Modulator and intersected with the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of GSE46224 identified with "limma" package in R to obtain the autophagy-related DEGs. Immune infiltration analysis showed that macrophages were the dominant immune cells in ICM tissue. Then the macrophage autophagy-related DEGs were identified using the weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). A total of six hub genes were obtained from the PPI network. All of the hub genes showed specific diagnostic significance with AUCs higher than 0.7, as also validated in the external dataset GSE116250. RT-qPCR was conducted to detect the mRNA expression levels of hub genes in vivo ICM rat model. Single-cell RNA sequencing analysis was also performed to investigate gene expression profiles. Our study explored the macrophage autophagy-related biomarkers and their relative pathways in ICM, provided novel diagnostic biomarkers for ICM, and gave new insight into the progression mechanism of ICM.

Long-Term Outcomes in Patients With Chronic Total Occlusion and Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction - A Single-Center Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting Analysis

BACKGROUND

The optimal treatment strategy for patients with coronary chronic total occlusion (CTO) and left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD) remains unclear. This study investigated the long-term outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), and medical therapy (MT) in this specific patient cohort.

METHODS AND RESULTS

This retrospective cohort study included 987 consecutive patients with CTO and LVSD who met the inclusion criteria and underwent either CTO-PCI (n=277), CTO-CABG (n=222), or CTO-MT (n=488) between 2014 and 2020. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality during follow-up. Secondary endpoints were major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) and their components, including cardiovascular mortality, myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, unplanned revascularization, and hospitalization for heart failure. During a median follow-up of 5.3 years, 232 (23.51%) patients died from any cause. In the unadjusted analysis, CTO-MT was associated with worse long-term survival prospects. After inverse probability of treatment weighting and variable adjustment, CTO-PCI and CTO-CABG demonstrated significant reductions in the long-term risks of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Notably, CTO-CABG was associated with the lowest long-term risks of MACCE, MI, unplanned revascularization, and hospitalization for heart failure.

CONCLUSIONS

For patients with CTO and LVSD, successful CTO revascularization significantly improved long-term survival compared with CTO-MT. CTO-CABG can be regarded as the optimal treatment modality for better long-term prognosis.

Percutaneous Revascularization for Ischemic Left Ventricular Dysfunction: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of the REVIVED-BCIS2 Trial

BACKGROUND

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is frequently undertaken in patients with ischemic left ventricular systolic dysfunction. The REVIVED (Revascularization for Ischemic Ventricular Dysfunction)-BCIS2 (British Cardiovascular Society-2) trial concluded that PCI did not reduce the incidence of all-cause death or heart failure hospitalization; however, patients assigned to PCI reported better initial health-related quality of life than those assigned to optimal medical therapy (OMT) alone. The aim of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of PCI+OMT compared with OMT alone.

METHODS

REVIVED-BCIS2 was a prospective, multicenter UK trial, which randomized patients with severe ischemic left ventricular systolic dysfunction to either PCI+OMT or OMT alone. Health care resource use (including planned and unplanned revascularizations, medication, device implantation, and heart failure hospitalizations) and health outcomes data (EuroQol 5-dimension 5-level questionnaire) on each patient were collected at baseline and up to 8 years post-randomization. Resource use was costed using publicly available national unit costs. Within the trial, mean total costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated from the perspective of the UK health system. Cost-effectiveness was evaluated using estimated mean costs and QALYs in both groups. Regression analysis was used to adjust for clinically relevant predictors.

RESULTS

Between 2013 and 2020, 700 patients were recruited (mean age: PCI+OMT=70 years, OMT=68 years; male (%): PCI+OMT=87, OMT=88); median follow-up was 3.4 years. Over all follow-ups, patients undergoing PCI yielded similar health benefits at higher costs compared with OMT alone (PCI+OMT: 4.14 QALYs, £22 352; OMT alone: 4.16 QALYs, £15 569; difference: -0.015, £6782). For both groups, most health resource consumption occurred in the first 2 years post-randomization. Probabilistic results showed that the probability of PCI being cost-effective was 0.

CONCLUSIONS

A minimal difference in total QALYs was identified between arms, and PCI+OMT was not cost-effective compared with OMT, given its additional cost. A strategy of routine PCI to treat ischemic left ventricular systolic dysfunction does not seem to be a justifiable use of health care resources in the United Kingdom.

REGISTRATION

URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT01920048.

Understanding the role of coronary artery revascularization in patients with left ventricular dysfunction and multivessel disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common cause of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Advances and innovations in medical therapy have been shown to play a crucial role in improving the prognosis of patients with CAD and HFrEF; however, mortality rate in these patients remains high, and the role of surgical and/or percutaneous revascularization strategy is still debated. The Surgical Treatment for Ischemic Heart Failure (STICH) trial and the Revascularization for Ischemic Ventricular Dysfunction (REVIVED) trial have attempted to provide an answer to this issue. Nevertheless, the results of these two trials have generated further uncertainties. Their findings do not provide a definitive answer about the ideal clinical phenotype for surgical or percutaneous coronary revascularization and dispute the historical dogma on myocardial viability and the theory of myocardial hibernation, raising new questions about the proper selection of patients who are candidates for coronary revascularization. The aim of this review is to provide an overview on the actual available evidence of coronary artery revascularization in patients with CAD and left ventricular dysfunction and to suggest new insights on the proper selection and management strategies in this high-risk clinical setting.

Revascularisation for Ischaemic Cardiomyopathy

Coronary artery disease is a leading cause of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. Coronary artery bypass grafting appears to provide clinical benefits such as improvements in quality of life, reductions in readmissions and MI, and favourable effects on long-term mortality; however, there is a significant short-term procedural risk when left ventricular function is severely impaired, which poses a conundrum for many patients. Could percutaneous coronary intervention provide the same benefits without the hazard of surgery? There have been no randomised studies to support this practice until recently. The REVIVED-BCIS2 trial (NCT01920048) assessed the outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention in addition to optimal medical therapy in patients with ischaemic left ventricular dysfunction and stable coronary artery disease. This review examines the trial results in detail, suggests a pathway for investigation and revascularisation in ischaemic cardiomyopathy, and explores some of the remaining unanswered questions.

Coronary revascularization for heart failure with coronary artery disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials

AIMS

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a common cause of heart failure (HF). Whether coronary revascularization improves outcomes in patients with HF receiving guideline-recommended pharmacological therapy (GRPT) remains uncertain; therefore, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

METHODS AND RESULTS

We searched in public databases for RCTs published between 1 January 2001 and 22 November 2022, investigating the effects of coronary revascularization on morbidity and mortality in patients with chronic HF due to CAD. All-cause mortality was the primary outcome. We included five RCTs that enrolled, altogether, 2842 patients (most aged <65 years; 85% men; 67% with left ventricular ejection fraction ≤35%). Overall, compared to medical therapy alone, coronary revascularization was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 0.88, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.79-0.99; p = 0.0278) and cardiovascular mortality (HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.70-0.93; p = 0.0024) but not the composite of hospitalization for HF or all-cause mortality (HR 0.87, 95% CI 0.74-1.01; p = 0.0728). There were insufficient data to show whether the effects of coronary artery bypass graft surgery or percutaneous coronary intervention were similar or differed.

CONCLUSIONS

For patients with chronic HF and CAD enrolled in RCTs, the effect of coronary revascularization on all-cause mortality was statistically significant but neither substantial (HR 0.88) nor robust (upper 95% CI close to 1.0). RCTs were not blinded, which may bias reporting of the cause-specific reasons for hospitalization and mortality. Further trials are required to determine which patients with HF and CAD obtain a substantial benefit from coronary revascularization by either coronary artery bypass graft surgery or percutaneous coronary intervention.