Atrial fibrillation and chronic total occlusionpercutaneous coronary intervention outcomes:insights from the PROGRESS-CTO Registry

BACKGROUND. We examined the effect of atrial fibrillation on the outcomes of chronic total occlusion (CTO) percutaneouscoronary intervention (PCI). METHODS. We examined the baseline characteristics and procedural outcomes of 9,166 CTO PCIsperformed at 39 US and non-US centers between 2012 and 2023. RESULTS. Atrial fibrillation was present in 1122 (12%) patients.These patients were older and had a higher incidence of comorbidities, such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, heart failure,cerebrovascular disease, and peripheral arterial disease, lower left ventricular ejection fraction, and lower eGFR. Their CTOs weremore likely to have moderate to severe calcification and longer lesion length. They also had higher mean J-CTO and PROGRESS-CTO complications (Acute MI, MACE, Mortality, Perforation, and Pericardiocentesis) scores. Patients with atrial fibrillation had higherprevalence of uncrossable and undilatable CTO lesions and required longer procedure (107 vs 119 min; P<.001) and fluoroscopy(40 vs 43 min; P=.005) time. Technical success and MACE, including procedural/in-hospital bleeding, were similar in patients withand without atrial fibrillation. Although the crude incidence of MACE on follow-up (median 61 days) was significantly higher inpatients with atrial fibrillation, the latter was not independently associated with adverse events on Cox proportional hazards analysis.CONCLUSIONS. Patients with atrial fibrillation undergoing CTO PCI are older, have more comorbidities, higher lesion complexity,and longer procedure time, but similar technical success and in-hospital MACE. They have higher MACE and mortality during follow-up, but the difference is not significant after adjusting for potential confounding variables.