Percutaneous coronary intervention with bivalirudin anticoagulation, immediate sheath removal, and early ambulation: a feasibility study with implications for day-stay procedures.

We assessed the feasibility and safety of a strategy of transfemoral percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with bivalirudin anticoagulation, immediate sheath removal, early ambulation, and, where possible, same-day discharge in 100 consecutive patients. Ambulation was achieved by 2 hr 30 min in 85% of patients and same-day discharge in 26%. PCI was angiographically successful in 97%. In hospital, there were no deaths or Q-wave myocardial infarctions. One patient suffered a non-Q-wave infarction, another in-hospital surgical revascularization and one required blood transfusion for rectal bleeding. Femoral access site hematoma > 5 cm diameter occurred in two patients. In addition, by 1 month there had been one death (at 10 days) and one pseudoaneurysm treated nonsurgically. In this preliminary study, the strategy of bivalirudin bolus anticoagulation, immediate sheath removal, and 2-hr ambulation after PCI appeared safe, with same-day discharge possible in 26% of unselected patients with stable or unstable angina.