Abstract

Objective The formerly observed volume-outcome relation for percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) has recently been questioned.

Design We analysed data of the PCI registry of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Leitende Kardiologische Krankenhausärzte.

Patients In 2003 a total of 27965 patients at 67 hospitals were included.

Results The median PCI volume per hospital was 327. In-hospital mortality was 1.85% in hospitals belonging to the lowest PCI volume quartile and 1.21% in the highest quartile (p for trend <0.001). We then compared two groups of patients according to their treatment at hospitals with either <325 PCIs (n=5754) or >325 PCIs (n=22211) per year. Logistic regression analysis showed that a PCI performed at hospitals with a volume of >325PCI/year was independently associated with a lower hospital mortality (OR = 0.67, 95%CI: 0.52-0.87; p=0.002). If PCI was performed in patients with acute myocardial infarction there was a significant decline in mortality with increasing volume (p for trend = 0.004), however there was no association in patients without a myocardial infarction.

Conclusions This analysis of contemporary PCI in clinical practice shows a small but significant volume-outcome relation for in-hospital mortality. However, this relation was only apparent in high risk subgroups, such as patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction.