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BACKGROUND: Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) of saphenous vein grafts (SVG) is associated with poor outcomes and is often regarded as inferior to native vessel PCI. We investigated clinical outcomes of SVG-PCI using contemporary drug-eluting stents (DES), in a complete, nationwide population.

METHODS: The complete Swedish Coronary Angiography and Angioplasty Registry (SCAAR) was used to identify all patients in Sweden who underwent SVG-PCI with a contemporary DES between 2013 and 2020. Baseline characteristics, procedures, and outcomes were described.

RESULTS: A total of 2198 SVG-PCI procedures with 3106 contemporary DES were included. Patients had a high incidence of comorbidities such as diabetes (40%), prior myocardial infarction (MI) (69%), and acute coronary syndrome (74%) at presentation. SVG-PCI procedures commonly involved multiple DES (41%). Native vessel PCI, in addition to SVG-PCI, was performed in only 13% of procedures. At 1 year, adverse clinical outcomes were frequent as exemplified by any death (9.2%), MI (9.1%), or revascularization (21.1%), whereas stent and lesion-related outcomes on a patient level were less common: stent thrombosis (1.2%), in-stent restenosis (4.3%) and target lesion revascularization (4.3%). Similarly, at 3 years, clinical outcomes were frequent: death (19.8%), MI (21.1%), revascularization (32.8%); and stent-related outcomes were less common: stent thrombosis (2.9%), restenosis (10.8), and target lesion revascularization (13.6%).

CONCLUSIONS: In this nationwide cohort of patients who underwent SVG-PCI with contemporary DES, patients were characterized by a high-risk profile and high rates of adverse clinical events. However, the incidence of stent and lesion-related events was low.