Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Results in Acute Increases in Oxidized Phospholipids and Lipoprotein(a)
While there is no question that, should I have a choice between PCI and open heart surgery, I would pick PCI anyday. But this procedure is done on many patients as a screening tool with chest pain. Many negative tests are done without thought to the long term consequences other than healing of the incision.
This study finds that there is a long term elevation of oxidized LDL (remember–LDL cannot damage our vessels until it gets damaged via oxidation) after PCI. This might be a willing trade off to the patient that avoided open heart surgery. But to the patient that was scoped to “rule out” obstructive lesions, this is not a good trade off. Maybe these findings will push a greater use of the non-invasive ultra fast CT, which does a nice job of ruling out cardiac involvement in patients with chest pain. Circulation — Abstracts: Tsimikas et al. 109 (25): 3164 –
