The practice of transradial percutaneous coronary intervention in the Washington State Clinical Outcomes Assessment...

Transradial percutaneous coronary intervention (tPCI) as opposed to the femoral approach (fPCI) is associated with lower rates of bleeding. The purposes of this study were to describe the use of tPCI in the Washington State Clinical Outcomes Assessment Program, identify the predictors of bleeding, and determine whether tPCI was associated with less bleeding in women vs men, age <75 years vs ≥75 years, and baseline creatinine <2.0 mg/dL vs ≥2.0 mg/dL.

This study included 23,599 individuals who had a first tPCI or fPCI performed in 30 centers in Washington State in 2010 and 2011. Data were collected according to specifications from the American College of Cardiology National Cardiovascular Data Registry Cath-PCI version 4.3. The American College of Cardiology National Cardiovascular Data Registry bleeding model was used to calculate adjusted rates.

Transradial percutaneous coronary intervention was used in only 5% of procedures, and in just 3 centers, tPCI was used in >10% of cases. Patient demographics and medical histories were similar in tPCI and fPCI, although the percent of acute cases was higher in fPCI (68% vs 45%, P < .0001). The overall bleeding rate was 2.2%, and the 3 most important predictors of bleeding were acute procedure, women, and age ≥75 years. For women, unadjusted rates of bleeding were 1.4% for tPCI and 4.0% for fPCI (P = .013). Among women, adjusted rates were almost 20% lower for tPCI (3.3% vs 4.1%).

In Washington State, tPCI was used infrequently, although it was associated with lower bleeding rates in high-risk groups including women.