Effect of smoking on clinical outcomes in patients receiving rotational atherectomy in calcified coronary lesions: from the ROCK Registry, South Korea

BACKGROUND: Tobacco smoking and its harmful health effects also increase economic burdens globally. Surprisingly, despite the detrimental health consequences of smoking, some studies have shown better survival among smokers compared with non-smokers, a phenomenon called “smoker's paradox”. However, the impact of smoking status on clinical outcomes in severe calcified coronary artery disease (CAD) patients has yet to be reported. OBJECTIVES: Investigate the impact of smoking on clinical outcomes in calcified CAD receiving rotational atherectomy (RA). DESIGN: Retrospective review of medical records. SETTING: Multicenter registry in South Korea. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This multicenter registry included consecutive patients with calcified CAD who underwent RA at nine tertiary centers in Korea between January 2010 and October 2019. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Target-vessel failure (TVF) which included the composite of cardiac death, target-vessel myocardial infarction (TVMI), and target-vessel revascularization (TVR). SAMPLE SIZE: 583 lesions in 540 patients followed for a median of 16.1 months. RESULTS: Lesions were divided into two groups: non-smokers (n=472, 81.0%) and smokers (n=111, 19.0%). TVF in the smoker group was significantly more frequent than in non-smoker group (log rank P=.016). The inverse probability of treatment weighting analysis also showed that smoking was significantly associated with a higher incidence of the primary outcome (HR: 1.617; 95% CI: 1.127–2.320; P=.009), cardiac death (HR 1.912; 95% CI: 1.105-3.311; P=.021), myocardial infarction (HR: 3.914; 95% CI: 1.884-8.132; P<.001), TVMI (HR: 3.234; 95% CI: 1.130-9.258; P=.029), and TVR (HR: 1.661; 95% CI: 1.043-2.643; P=.032). However, any bleeding was significantly observed less in the smokers. CONCLUSION: Smoking is significantly associated with adverse clinical outcomes in CAD patients requiring RA. LIMITATIONS: Retrospective design. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: None.