In the FREEDOM trial, revascularization with CABG surgery was superior to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug-eluting stents in reducing the rate of major adverse cardiovascular events in patients with diabetes mellitus who have multivessel coronary artery disease (CAD). The FREEDOM Follow-On study, a 7.5 year-follow up report of 943 of the 1,900 patients of the FREEDOM trial, now shows that patients with diabetes who underwent CABG surgery have greater long-term survival than patients treated with PCI, with an all-cause mortality of 23.7% in the PCI group and 18.7% in the CABG surgery group. These results confirm the superiority of CABG surgery over PCI to treat patients with diabetes who have multivessel CAD, and support the current guidelines.
References
Original article
Farkouh, M. E. et al. Long-term survival following multivessel revascularization in patients with diabetes (FREEDOM Follow-On Study). J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2018.11.001 (2018)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Le Bras, A. Long-term mortality benefit of CABG surgery over PCI in patients with diabetes mellitus. Nat Rev Cardiol 16, 3 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-018-0137-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-018-0137-2