Left main coronary angioplasty in surgical and nonsurgical candidates: putative role for a preconditioned expert culture on clinical outcome.

The impact of patient- and operator-related clinical variables of success and evaluation of subsequent midterm effects of percutaneous treatment of left main coronary stenosis were assessed at a tertiary-referral high-volume angioplasty center in a retrospective observational study. A total of 118 consecutive surgical and nonsurgical patients with protected and unprotected left main (LM) lesions were treated by operators within a preconditioned expert culture. There were 57 protected and 61 unprotected patients, including 13 patients with an acute myocardial infarction (AMI).