Long-term outcomes in the smoking claudicant after peripheral vascular interventions.

Objective: Emphasis on tobacco cessation, given the urgent and emergent nature of vascular surgery, is less prevalent than standard elective cases such as hernia repairs, cosmetic surgery, and bariatric procedures. The goal of this study is to determine the effect of active smoking on claudicating individuals undergoing peripheral vascular interventions (PVIs). Our goal is to determine if a greater emphasis on education should be placed on smoking cessation in nonurgent cases scheduled through clinic visits and not the Emergency Department.

Methods: This study was performed using the multi-institution de-identified Vascular Quality Initiative/Medicare-linked database (Vascular Implant Surveillance and Interventional Outcomes Network [VISION]). Claudicants who underwent PVI for peripheral arterial occlusive disease between 2004 and 2019 were included in our study. Our final sample consisted of a total of 18,726 patients: 3617 nonsmokers (19.3%) (NSs), 9975 former smokers (53.3%) (FSs), and 5134 current smokers (27.4%) (CSs). We performed propensity score matching on 29 variables (age, gender, race, ethnicity, treatment setting [outpatient or inpatient], obesity, insurance, hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, previous coronary artery bypass graft, carotid endarterectomy, major amputation, inflow treatment, prior bypass or PVI, preoperative medications, level of treatment, concomitant endarterectomy, and treatment type [atherectomy, angioplasty, stent]) between NS vs FS and FS vs CS. Outcomes were long-term (5-year) overall survival (OS), limb salvage (LS), freedom from reintervention (FR), and amputation-free survival (AFS).

Results: Propensity score matching resulted in 3160 well-matched pairs of NS and FS and 3750 well-matched pairs of FS and CS. There was no difference between FS and NS in terms of OS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.94; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.82-1.09; P = .43), FR (HR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.89-1.04; P = .35), or AFS (HR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.79-1.03; P = .12). However, when compared with CS, we found FS to have a higher OS (HR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.04-1.33; P = .01), less FR (HR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.83-0.96; P = .003), and greater AFS (HR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.03-1.31; P = .01).

Conclusions: This multi-institutional Medicare-linked study looking at elective PVI cases in patients with peripheral artery disease presenting with claudication found that FSs have similar 5-year outcomes in comparison to NSs in terms of OS, FR, and AFS. Additionally, CSs have lower OS and AFS when compared with FSs. Overall, this suggests that smoking claudicants should be highly encouraged and referred to structured smoking cessation programs or even required to stop smoking prior to elective PVI due to the perceived 5-year benefit.