Majd Protty1, MD; Sean Gallagher1, MD; Andrew S.P. Sharp1, MD; Richard Anderson1, MD; Peter Ludman2, MD; Nick Curzen3, PhD; Jim Nolan4, MD; Muhammad Rashid4,5, PhD; Mamas Mamas4,5, PhD; Tim Kinnaird1, MD
1. Department of Cardiology, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom; 2. Department of Cardiology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom; 3. Department of Cardiology, University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust, Southampton, United Kingdom; 4. Department of Cardiology, Royal Stoke University Hospital, UHNM, Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom; 5. Keele Cardiovascular Research Group, Institute of Applied Clinical Sciences, University of Keele, Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom
Introduction
Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has evolved from femoral arterial access predominance to radial arterial access. Despite the widespread use of the radial and femoral approaches, there remains a small but consistent subgroup of patients in whom the brachial approach is still chosen1. The study hypothesis was that, although clinical outcomes of patients undergoing PCI using brachial access might be inferior to other access sites, in procedures utilising brachial access undertaken by default radial operators clinical outcomes might be similar to procedures utilising femoral access.