Comparison of Heart Team vs Interventional Cardiologist Recommendations for the Treatment of Patients With Multivessel Coronary Artery Disease

Abstract

The heart team's recommended treatment for patients with multivessel coronary artery disease differed from that of the original treating interventional cardiologist in up to 30% of cases. This subset of cases was associated with a lower frequency of unanimous decisions within the heart team and less concordance between the interventional cardiologists; discordance was more frequent when percutaneous coronary intervention or medication therapy were considered. Further research is needed to evaluate whether heart team decisions are associated with improvements in outcomes and, if so, how to identify patients for whom the heart team approach would be beneficial.