Percutaneous Coronary Interventions and Post-Procedural Enzyme Elevation

In the last 30 years, the number of cardiovascular diagnostic and therapeutic invasive procedures has progressively increased in many countries around the world. According to the American Heart Association, almost 1,03 million coronary angiographies, 955 thousand percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) and 397 thousand heart surgeries were performed in the United States (US) alone in the year 2010 [1]. Although since the year 2006 the number of angioplasties seems to be stable in the US, in other countries such as Brazil the procedure count continues to rise [2]. This trend underscores the importance of concurrently analyzing the behavior of intervention related complications, particularly because PCI associated in hospital mortality remains at around 1.31%, notwithstanding the total complication rate which is even more significant. [1] In this context, post-procedural enzyme elevation is a frequently overlooked complication that has an important independent prognostic value.