Use of invasive coronary angiography is commonly used as strategies to guide the care of suspected coronary heart disease (CHD)
University of Leeds, United Kingdom researcher, John P. Greenwood, Ph.D., and colleagues examined whether among patients with suspected coronary heart disease (CHD), cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR)-guided care is superior to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines-directed care and myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS)-guided care in reducing unnecessary angiography. This study was published online by JAMA. The study is being released to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2016.
‘Avoiding unnecessary angiography among patients with suspected CHD by using CMR guided strategy will help reduce patient risk and provide significant financial savings.’
Coronary heart disease is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Several methods are available to diagnose CHD, risk-stratify patients, and determine the need for revascularization.Despite the widespread availability and recommendations for noninvasive imaging in international guidelines, invasive coronary angiography is commonly used in patients with suspected CHD.
Evidence from large populations presenting with chest pain has confirmed that the majority will not have significant obstructive coronary disease. Avoiding unnecessary angiography should reduce patient risk and provide significant financial savings.
In this study, 1,202 symptomatic patients from 6 UK hospitals with suspected CHD were randomly assigned to management according to UK NICE guidelines (n = 240) or to guided care based on the results of CMR (n = 481) or MPS (n = 481) testing.
Among the patients, the number with invasive coronary angiography after 12 months was 102 in the NICE guidelines group (43%), 85 in the CMR group (18%); and 78 in the MPS group (16%). The researchers found that a CMR-guided strategy significantly reduced study-defined unnecessary angiography compared with NICE guidelines-guided care, but was not significantly different from an MPS-guided strategy.
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