Trends of percutaneous coronary intervention in italy in the last 10 years

AIMS: To study the trends in the use of percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) in Italy between 2005 and 2014. METHODS: Publicly available data were obtained from the Italian Society of Invasive Cardiology (GISE), which organizes an annual audit of public and private cardiac catheterization laboratories. RESULTS: During the 10 years, more than 1.3 million PCIs were performed. The total number of PCIs per year increased by 23%, and reached 2342 procedures/million inhabitants in 2014: this was driven by a 91% increase in primary PCIs (PPCIs) for acute myocardial infarction, with the number of PPCIs/million inhabitants that nearly doubled from 291 to 536. Although the number of PCIs/million inhabitants was not homogeneously distributed over the country: even in 2014, it was higher in northern regions (2545) than in central (2229) or southern Italy and the islands (2138). CONCLUSION: The number of PCIs performed in Italy has steadily grown over the last decade. The trend was driven by a striking increase in the number of PPCIs for patients with acute myocardial infarction. The increase in the number of PCIs/million inhabitants was higher in northern Italy.