Prospective evaluation of treatment strategies in patients presenting with chronic total occlusion at coronary angiogram: rationale, design and baseline data of the PETS-CTO Registry.

Background: Coronary chronic total occlusions (CTO) are associated with an increased chance of untreatable symptoms and worse prognosis. However, limited data are available about the interaction between treatment strategy, potential ischemia burden reduction and quality of life (QoL) improvement.

Methods: Our prospective registry aims to assess the potentially different impacts of treatment strategies (coronary artery bypass grafting vs.. percutaneous coronary intervention vs. optimal medical therapy) on clinical outcomes and QoL domains. This article specifically focuses on describing the registry's rationale, design, and baseline characteristics of the enrolled patients.

Results: A total of 157 patients were enrolled. Every patient was evaluated for baseline symptoms, ischemic burden and QoL and allocated to a treatment arm. In 112 patients (71.3%) ischemia baseline assessment was performed and for 116 (73.9%) Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ) was available. At baseline, a significant functional limitation was evident, especially in terms of angina stability (mean score 69±31%) and disease perception (mean score 69±27%). In 49.1% of patients, ischemia testing was positive. Patients with documented ischemia were generally more symptomatic (CCS class 1 36.4% vs.. 57.9%, P=0.023) and a significant inverse correlation between CCS class and SAQ domains was found. No association between ischemia burden and self-reported QoL scores was found.

Conclusions: The PETS-CTO registry is the first prospective registry investigating the impact of different treatment strategies on QoL and ischemia burden in patients with CTOs. At baseline, the severity of symptoms was directly associated with ischemia burden and inversely associated with self-reported QoL evaluation.