Adoption of Radial Access and Comparison of Outcomes to Femoral Access in Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

BACKGROUND: Radial access for percutaneous coronary intervention (r-PCI) is associated with reduced vascular complications; however, previous reports have shown that <2% of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures in the United States are performed via the radial approach. Our aims were to evaluate temporal trends in r-PCI and compare procedural outcomes between r-PCI and transfemoral PCI. METHODS AND RESULTS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study from the CathPCI registry (n=2 820 874 procedures from 1381 sites) between January 2007 and September 2012. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to evaluate the adjusted association between r-PCI and bleeding, vascular complications, and procedural success, using transfemoral PCI as the reference. Outcomes in high-risk subgroups such as age ≥75 years, women, and patients with acute coronary syndrome were also examined. The proportion of r-PCI procedures increased from 1.2% in quarter 1 2007 to 16.1% in quarter 3 2012 and accounted for 6.3% of total procedures from 2007 to 2012 (n=178 643). After multivariable adjustment, r-PCI use in the studied cohort of patients was associated with lower risk of bleeding (adjusted odds ratio, 0.51; 95% confidence interval, 0.49-0.54) and lower risk of vascular complications (adjusted odds ratio, 0.39; 95% confidence interval, 0.31-0.50) in comparison with transfemoral PCI. The reduction in bleeding and vascular complications was consistent across important subgroups of age, sex, and clinical presentation. CONCLUSIONS: There has been increasing adoption of r-PCI in the United States. Transradial PCI now accounts for 1 of 6 PCIs performed in contemporary clinical practice. In comparison with traditional femoral access, transradial PCI is associated with lower vascular and bleeding complication rates.