[China Tech] China Achieves Remarkable Progress in Coronary Interventional Cardiology

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China has achieved remarkable progress in coronary interventional cardiology over the past two decades.

Experts at the 20th Oriental Congress of Cardiology in Shanghai said that the country has advanced from a global follower to a leader in this field through indigenous technological innovation, large-scale clinical trials, standardized procedural frameworks, and breakthrough domestic device development.

Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO) intervention, widely regarded as the "last fortress" in complex coronary intervention, poses extreme technical challenges and significant procedural risks. Academician Wang Jian'an emphasized that China has made significant progress in this specialized field during the last two decades.

A CTO is a complete coronary artery blockage that lasts longer than three months and frequently results in significant chest discomfort, dyspnea, and decreased cardiac perfusion. Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) is an important minimally invasive revascularization method for CTO and a viable alternative to bypass surgery.

Prior to 2005, China's CTO-PCI procedural success rate was around 60 to 70 percent. To standardize clinical practice and enhance disciplinary development, China published the world's first CTO-PCI clinical route guideline tailored exclusively for Asian and Chinese patients, closing a long-standing gap in regionally defined protocols.

Furthermore, China created the world's largest CTO registry database, generating strong real-world evidence to enable technical iteration and clinical optimization.

Today, China's CTO intervention success rate has surpassed 90 percent, reaching world-class levels. Chinese cardiologists developed the groundbreaking reverse "two-way rendezvous" technique, which converts high-level expertise into standardized, teachable, and replicable procedures.

Domestically manufactured dedicated CTO devices have entered clinical use, shattering the long-held monopoly of imported high-end equipment due to unmet clinical needs.

China has also made consistent progress in new "implantation-free interventional therapy," such as biodegradable stents and drug-coated balloons, through a rigorous, evidence-based clinical promotion strategy.

Homegrown biodegradable stents use improved poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) and terpolymer substrates to meet the clinical idea of bioresorbable devices that "vanish after treatment completion."

Meanwhile, domestic clinical investigations have clearly established the appropriate criteria for drug-coated balloons, preventing unnecessary widespread use across all coronary lesions.

Wang also stated that using drug-coated balloons in all cardiac circumstances is clinically inadvisable. Currently, implantation-free interventional technologies show promising results in specific lesion types and will be increasingly promoted following rigorous clinical validation.

After two decades of consistent improvement, China has made outstanding strides in heart procedures, including new methods, solid clinical research, original technologies, inside-the-vessel imaging, health assessments, and local device production. China's cardiovascular interventional field has moved from copying technology to leading it, from depending on foreign equipment to developing its own, and from following international rules to creating top-quality clinical evidence, providing important Chinese solutions for precise heart care around the world, said Academician Ge Junbo, chairperson of the meeting.