Importance: Despite a rapid increase in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures in China, little is known about patient-reported health status before and after PCI in patients without acute myocardial infarction (AMI).
Objective: To describe self-perceived angina-specific health status prior to PCI and 1 year after the procedure in patients without AMI in China.
Design, setting, and participants: The China Patient-Centered Evaluative Assessment of Cardiac Events (PEACE) Prospective Study of PCI was a population-based, multicenter cohort study of a consecutive sample of 1611 patients without AMI undergoing elective PCI. Participants were enrolled from 40 hospitals in 18 provinces in China from December 2012 to August 2014. Participants were eligible if they underwent PCI for stable and unstable angina and did not have AMI. Participants were excluded if they died in hospital, withdrew from follow-up, or had missing data on self-reported health status at baseline or at 1 year after PCI. The date of the analysis was September 15, 2018.
Exposures: Percutaneous coronary intervention for ischemic heart disease.
Main outcomes and measures: Angina frequency and angina-related quality of life were assessed with the Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ) immediately prior to PCI and 1 year after the procedure. Either (1) an increase in the SAQ Angina Frequency score of 10 or more points or (2) an increase in the SAQ Quality-of-Life score of 10 or more points was considered to represent clinically significant improvement.
Results: Of 1611 patients, 520 (32.3%) were women; mean (SD) age was 61.3 (9.8) years. Among these patients, 443 (27.5%) had stable coronary artery disease and 1168 (72.5%) had unstable angina. One hundred fourteen of 443 patients undergoing PCI for stable coronary artery disease (25.7%) and 175 of 1168 undergoing PCI for unstable angina (15.0%) had no reported angina symptoms at the time of the procedure (SAQ Angina Frequency score = 100). Moreover, 18% of all patients (290) had minimal angina symptoms (SAQ Angina Frequency score >90) and, thus, no potential for substantial clinical improvement. Patients with smaller clinical improvements in angina symptom burden at 1 year following PCI had significantly higher baseline SAQ scores for all scales than patients with greater clinical improvement, but generally similar sociodemographic and procedural characteristics.
Conclusions and relevance: In this study, 25.7% of patients undergoing PCI for stable coronary artery disease had no reported angina symptoms at the time of the procedure. Patients with smaller clinical improvements in angina symptom burden had higher baseline SAQ scores, which highlights the importance of ascertaining impairment from angina among patients without AMI prior to performing PCI.