PCI
Abbreviation with 3 meanings
| Stands for | Percutaneous coronary intervention |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 3 |
| Categories | Medical, Technology & Computing |
PCI has three meanings. The most common are Percutaneous coronary intervention (cardiology) and Prophylactic cranial irradiation (hematology and oncology); it can also stand for Peripheral Component Interconnect.
Meanings of PCI at a glance
| # | PCI stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Percutaneous coronary intervention | Medical › Cardiology |
| 2 | Prophylactic cranial irradiation | Medical › Hematology and Oncology |
| 3 | Peripheral Component Interconnect | Technology & Computing › Computer Hardware |
1. Percutaneous coronary intervention
Medical · Cardiology Abbreviations
Catheter-based procedure that opens narrowed or blocked coronary arteries, usually by inflating a balloon and placing a stent, accessed through the wrist or groin. It is the emergency treatment of choice for STEMI and is also used for NSTEMI, unstable angina and selected stable angina.
Example: Primary PCI of the occluded RCA with one drug-eluting stent; door-to-balloon 58 minutes.
PCI is the umbrella term that replaced PTCA once stents became routine, and "primary PCI" means immediate PCI for STEMI without prior clot-busting drugs. For stable disease, the COURAGE (2007) and ISCHEMIA (2020) trials found that routine revascularization relieves angina but does not reduce death or heart attack compared with optimal medical therapy alone. In oncology PCI means prophylactic cranial irradiation.
2. Prophylactic cranial irradiation
Medical · Hematology and Oncology Abbreviations
Low-dose radiation to the whole brain given to patients without detectable brain metastases to prevent future brain relapse, used mainly in small cell lung cancer that has responded to treatment and in some acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Example: Limited-stage SCLC in complete response after chemoradiation; PCI 25 Gy in 10 fractions discussed.
A 1999 meta-analysis showed that PCI reduced brain metastases and improved survival in limited-stage SCLC patients in complete remission. A Japanese trial (2017) found no survival benefit in extensive-stage disease when patients were followed with regular brain MRI, so MRI surveillance is a common alternative. In cardiology PCI means percutaneous coronary intervention, a far more common meaning.
3. Peripheral Component Interconnect
Technology & Computing · Computer Hardware Abbreviations
Parallel expansion bus introduced by Intel in 1992 for adding sound, network, modem and graphics cards to PCs, usually in white slots. Standard PCI runs at 33 MHz on a 32-bit bus, about 133 MB/s shared among all cards.
Example: The old capture card is PCI, so it won't fit the PCIe slots on a new motherboard.
PCI replaced the ISA and VLB buses in the mid-1990s and was itself superseded by PCI Express in the mid-2000s; most motherboards dropped PCI slots in the 2010s. The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), formed in 1992, still manages PCIe. A faster server variant, PCI-X, ran at up to 133 MHz on a 64-bit bus.
Related abbreviations
More cardiology abbreviations
- OPCAB – Off-pump coronary artery bypass
- PAC – Premature atrial contraction
- PAD – Peripheral artery disease
- PAF – Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation
- PCWP – Pulmonary capillary wedge pressure
- PDA – Patent ductus arteriosus
- PEA – Pulseless electrical activity
- PFO – Patent foramen ovale
See all 229 cardiology abbreviations →
More hematology and oncology abbreviations
- NHL – Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- NSCLC – Non-small cell lung cancer
- ORR – Objective response rate
- OS – Overall survival
- pCR – Pathologic complete response
- PD – Progressive disease
- PD-1 – Programmed cell death protein 1
- PD-L1 – Programmed death-ligand 1
See all 144 hematology and oncology abbreviations →
This entry is for general education and is not medical advice. Abbreviation use varies between institutions; always confirm in context.