Background: The Post Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Trial, designed to compare the effects of two lipid-lowering regimens and low-dose anticoagulation versus placebo on progression of atherosclerosis in saphenous vein grafts of patients who had had CABG surgery, demonstrated that aggressive lowering of LDL cholesterol levels to a mean yearly cholesterol level from 93 to 97 mg/dL compared with a moderate reduction to a level of 132 to 136 mg/dL decreased the progression of atherosclerosis in saphenous vein grafts. Low-dose anticoagulation did not affect progression. This secondary analysis tested the hypothesis that a similar decrease in progression of atherosclerosis would also be present in native coronary arteries as measured in the left main coronary artery (LMCA).
Methods and results: A sample of 402 patients was randomly selected from 1102 patients who had baseline and follow-up views of the LMCA suitable for analysis. Patients treated with the aggressive lipid-lowering strategy had less progression of atherosclerosis in the LMCA as measured by changes in minimum (P=0.0003) lumen diameter or the maximum percent stenosis (P=0.001), or the presence of substantial progression (P=0.008), or vascular occlusion (P=0.005) when compared with the moderate strategy.
Conclusions: A strategy of aggressive lipid lowering results in significantly less atherosclerosis progression than a moderate approach in LMCAs.