Repeat Coronary Angioplasty

The potential of repeat percutaneous transluminal cor-onary angioplasty as a mode of therapy for recurrence of stenosis after initially successful angioplasty was ex-amined on the basis of data on all 514 patients with successful angioplasty at Emory University before April]982. Recurrence was found in 171 (33%) of the 514 patients. Repeat angioplasty was attempted in 95 pa-tients with a significantly higher primary success rate 197 versus 85%, p < 0.001) and a lower complication rate (8 versus 15%, p < 0.10) than those of initial an-gioplasty, Follow-up documentation was available in all Several thousand patients throughout the world have been treated with percutaneous transluminal coronary angio-plasty. Reports from various centers (1-5) indicate that 59 to 92 % of the procedures succeed in significantly reducing the degree of stenosis and in ameliorating or eliminating symptoms. Recurrence of stenosis and symptoms is of major concern to all physicians performing coronary angioplasty. According to previous reports, recurrences occur in 13 to 47 % (6-8), usually within the first 3 (6) to 9 (5) months. This retrospective study analyzes repeat coronary angio-plasty as a means to manage patients with recurrence of stenosis after successful angioplasty