Cor Vasa 2011, 53(3):118-123 | DOI: 10.33678/cor.2011.026

A prospective follow-up study of periprocedural complications in patients undergoing elective coronary angiography and/or PCI

Vojtěch Novotný¹, Michaela Riegerová², Jan Matějka^1,3, Petr Vojtíšek¹, Ivo Varvařovský³, Vladimír Rozsíval³, Aleš Herman³

¹ Kardiologické oddělení, Pardubická krajská nemocnice, a. s.

² Fakulta zdravotnických studií, Univerzita Pardubice

³ Kardio Troll, s. r. o., Pardubice, Česká republika

Aim: The aim of our follow-up study was to determine the incidence and proportion of all complications patients undergoing the above diagnostic and therapeutic procedure may develop. Special attention was given to a comparison of two dominant vascular accesses, the femoral and radial ones.

Method: Over the period from January to June 2008, we prospectively followed up, in all consecutive patients undergoing elective coronary angiography in our center, the incidence of any event complicating the procedure or subsequent hospitalization. All complications registered prospectively during the study period were statistically analyzed.

Results: Of 1,132 consecutive patients admitted between January and June 2008 for elective coronary angiography, 84 (7.4%) developed a complication, which was serious in eight patients (0.7%).
A statistically higher incidence of all complications was noted in elderly patients and female patients.
The total complication rate was significantly lower with radial access compared with the femoral one: 17 of 370 (4.6%) versus 66 of 753 (8.8%) procedures (OR 0.50; 95% CI 0.29-0.87; p=0.011); the differences did not reach significance in the case of serious complications: 2 of 370 (0.5%) versus 6 of 753 (0.8%) procedures (OR 0.68; 95% CI 0.14-3.38; p=0.64).

Conclusion: Our prospective study documents the incidence of all, and particularly serious, complications of elective coronary angiography in a real-life population. Our finding including the frequency of serious complications is consistent with earlier literary reports. In addition, we were able to confirm some well-characterized risk factors of complications. In particular, we documented a significantly lower incidence of complications if using radial access.

Keywords: Coronary angiography; Complications; Radial; Femoral; Elective

Published: March 1, 2011  Show citation