Aims: Current guidelines recommend immediate multivessel percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with cardiogenic shock, despite the lack of randomised trials. We sought to investigate the use and impact on outcome of multivessel PCI in current practice in cardiogenic shock in Germany.
Methods and results: Between January 2008 and December 2011 a total of 735 consecutive patients with acute myocardial infarction, cardiogenic shock and multivessel coronary artery disease underwent immediate PCI in 41 hospitals in Germany. Of these, 173 (23.5%) patients were treated with immediate multivessel PCI. The acute success of PCI with respect to TIMI 3 flow did not differ between the groups (82.5% versus 79.6%). In-hospital mortality with multivessel PCI and culprit lesion PCI was 46.8% and 35.8%, respectively. In multivariate analysis multivessel PCI was associated with an increased mortality (odds ratio 1.5; 95% confidence interval 1.15-1.84).
Conclusions: In current clinical practice in Germany multivessel PCI is used only in one quarter of patients with cardiogenic shock treated with primary PCI. We observed an adverse effect of immediate multivessel PCI. Therefore, a randomised trial is needed to determine the definitive role of multivessel PCI in cardiogenic shock.