Chronic total artery occlusions in noninfarct-related coronary arteries

It has been rarely encountered some patients in clinical practice with coronary artery chronic total occlusion (CTO) on angiography but no any clinical history or electrocardiographic, echocardiographic, or left ventriculographic evidence of previous myocardial infarction. These noninfarct-related artery CTO (non-IRA CTO) lesions may be used as a clinical role model of endogenous cardioprotective mechanisms in addition to continuing the process of atherosclerosis. The objective of this study was to characterize the clinical characteristics of patients with non-IRA CTO patients and compared them to those with infarct-related CTO (IRA-CTO). We reviewed our invasive cardiology database searching for the CTO of any major coronary arteries, and assessed whether or not they have the clinical history or electrocardiographic, echocardiographic, and left ventriculographic evidence of previous myocardial infarction. Interestingly, we detected that all these patients with non-IRA CTO had diabetes mellitus, and the clinical and demographic features of these non-IRA CTO patients were compared with age- and sex-matched diabetic IRA-CTO patients with regard to conventional coronary risk factors and the angiographic collateral grading system. There were total 99 CTO patients (49 patients with non-IRA CTO and 50 patients with IRA-CTO).All patients with non-IRA CTO had better collateral circulation (96 vs. 40% p < 0.001) compared with those having IRA-CTO. The only significant difference between the groups was the status of current smoking (4 vs. 88%; p < 0.001). The present study showed that the non-IRA CTOs were associated with diabetes mellitus and better collateral development compared with IRA-CTO. In diabetic patients, the concomitant smoking use may be harmful by preventing endogenous cardioprotective mechanisms.