Impact on prognosis of periprocedural myocardial infarction after percutaneous coronary intervention

Different definitions of periprocedural myocardial infarction (MI) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) have been provided, but their impact on prognosis remains to be determined.

Procedural data from consecutive patients undergoing PCI from 2009 to 2011 were revised to adjudicate diagnosis of periprocedural MI according to CK-MB increase (>3 × URL and >5 × URL), to troponin increase (>3 × 99th percentile URL and >5 × 99th percentile URL) and to recent 2012 Task Force and Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) definitions. Major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) was the primary end-point.

Seven hundred twelve patients were enrolled; after 771 days, 115 (16.7%) patients experienced MACE. One hundred ninety patients were diagnosed with a periprocedural MI defined as elevation of troponin >5 × 99th percentile of URL. When adjudicating 2012 Task Force definition on these patients, 46 were excluded and 1.4% of them experienced a MACE and 0.3% died, while among 144 with periprocedural MI, 2.9% reported a MACE and 1.3% died. After appraisal of SCAI definition, 176 patients were excluded, 3.8% of them with a MACE and 1.4% died, and for those with periprocedural MI, 0.5% experienced a MACE and 0.1% died. Similar low performance was appraised after reclassification of patients from more than 3 of upper limit of CK-MB and of troponin. At multivariate analysis, none of these definitions related to adverse events.

Periprocedural MI represents a frequent complication for patients undergoing PCI. All present definitions share a still not satisfactory discrimination between patients with and without adverse events at follow-up, stressing the need for more accurate definitions.