Patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) and myocardial ischaemia who undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) have similar morbidity and mortality rates to those who receive medical therapy alone, a large meta-analysis has found. The authors performed a meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials of PCI and medical therapy for stable CAD conducted over the past 40 years, covering five trials with a total of 5,286 patients. The trials included COURAGE, MASS II, BARI 2D and FAME 2. There were 4,064 patients with myocardial ischaemia documented by exercise stress testing, nuclear or echo stress imaging modalities or by the measurement of fractional flow reserve. Median follow-up was five years.