The Chronic Dilemma of Chronic Total Occlusion Revascularization

A chronic total occlusion (CTO) is encountered in up to 20% of patients with significant coronary artery disease (CAD) on coronary angiography and is a marker of advanced CAD and cardiovascular morbidity.(1) Several studies have evaluated surgical(2) and percutaneous revascularization in patients with CTO.(3) Percutaneous CTO revascularization of coronary vessels (CTO-PCI) remains a major challenge for interventional cardiologists, due to higher complexity, lower success rates and more frequent complications compared to revascularization of non-chronically occluded coronary vessels.(4) Notably, the last decade has witnessed unprecedented progress in the standardization of CTO-PCI and improvement of instrumentarium, with a growing interest for the interventional treatment of this lesion subset.
Source: The American Journal of Cardiology - Category: Cardiology Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research