Background:
It has been known that East Asian people, including Japanese, has a high bleeding risk (HBR) than Western. Therefore, risk stratification is important to detect HBR patients among patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between serum albumin level and bleeding events in patients who underwent PCI.
Methods and Results:
Consecutive 1027 patients who underwent PCI and had been discharged from our institution were enrolled. We divided the patients into three groups based on serum albumin levels at discharge: the first tertile (≤3.7 g/dL, n=358), second tertile (3.8-4.1 g/dL, n=308) and third tertile (≥4.2 g/dL, n=361). Clinical characteristics of three groups were as follows: mean age (the first, second and third tertile; 72.9, 69.3 and 63.4 years, P<0.001), body mass index (23.4, 24.4 and 24.9 kg/m
2
, P<0.001), prevalence of male sex (70.7%, 78.6% and 87.1%, P<0.001), chronic kidney disease (53.8%, 39.3% and 27.1%, P<0.001), anemia (27.9%, 11.3% and 7.2%, P<0.001), atrial fibrillation (21.2%, 12.0% and 11.6%, P<0.001), peripheral artery disease (16.5%, 12.5% and 8.8%, P=0.021), stroke (23.2%, 17.9% and 9.6%, P<0.001), heart failure (54.1%, 28.1% and 21.7%, P<0.001), and use of anticoagulants (17.3%, 10.0% and 10.7%, P=0.007). In contrast, combination of antiplatelets did not differ among groups. In the Kaplan-Meier analysis (mean follow-up 1742 days), accumulated bleeding events progressively increased from the third tertile to the first tertile (Figure). The multivariable Cox proportional hazard analysis revealed that the first tertile (vs. third tertile) was independently associated with bleeding events in patients who underwent PCI (hazard ratio 3.080, 95% confidence interval 1.362-6.961, P=0.007).
Conclusion:
In patients who underwent PCI, low serum albumin level is independently associated with long-term bleeding events.