Long-Term Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention with or without Preprocedural Exercise Stress Test

BACKGROUND: Although current guidelines recommend noninvasive stress tests prior to elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), it is unknown whether antecedent exercise stress test (EST) affects the outcomes of patients undergoing PCI for stable ischemic heart disease (SIHD). This study aimed to investigate long-term outcomes in patients undergoing elective PCI with or without EST. METHODS: We studied 2,674 patients undergoing elective PCI using drug-eluting stents for SIHD. Patients were divided into the 2 groups: the test group underwent EST with a positive result within 180 days prior to PCI (n = 668), whereas the non-test group did not undergo any noninvasive stress tests (n = 2,006). The primary outcome was all-cause death or myocardial infarction (MI). RESULTS: Over 5 years after the index PCI, the risk of all-cause death or MI was significantly lower in the test group than in the non-test group in overall population (3.3% vs. 10.9%; adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 0.34; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.22–0.55; P < 0.001), and in propensity score-matched population (668 pairs) (3.3% vs. 6.3%; adjusted HR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.30–0.89; P = 0.018). However, the incidence of any revascularization was similar between the 2 groups in overall (16.7% vs. 16.8%; adjusted HR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.79–1.25; P = 0.962) and matched population (16.7% vs. 18.3%; adjusted HR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.70–1.19; P = 0.509). CONCLUSION: Patients who underwent elective PCI with EST had a reduced risk of all-cause death or MI than those undergoing PCI without stress tests.