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The optimal choice for revascularization of patients with multivessel coronary disease is not known. While bypass surgery has been considered the procedure of choice, multivessel angioplasty has been growing in popularity. Two studies -- Randomized Intervention Treatment of Angina (RITA) and Argentine Randomized Trial of Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty versus Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery in Multivessel Disease (ERACI) -- showed risk of death and reinfarction to be similar for the two methods, but patients randomized to angioplasty underwent a much higher number of procedures. Similar results are reported from two additional recent randomized trials.
The German Angioplasty Bypass Surgery Investigation (GABI) randomized to ang…