Yoga-based rehabilitation after PCI improved quality-of-life measures, but not the trial’s primary exercise endpoint

Current assessment: The available evidence supports a measured conclusion: in this randomized trial, yoga-based cardiac rehabilitation after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was associated with better patient-reported quality of life, lower anxiety and stress scores, and higher self-reported physical activity at six months than standard care. It did not demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in the trial’s prespecified primary measure of exercise capacity when all randomized participants were analyzed.

Reported facts: The study, published online in BMC Medicine on October 19, 2026, enrolled 200 adults with revascularized coronary artery disease who had recently undergone PCI for acute or chronic coronary syndromes. Researchers at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi randomly assigned 98 participants to a structured yoga-based cardiac-rehabilitation program and 102 to standard care. The median participant age was 53, and 174 participants were men.

The primary endpoint was maximally tolerated treadmill-test duration using the Bruce protocol at six months. In the intention-to-treat analysis,the principal randomized comparison,median duration was seven minutes in the yoga-based rehabilitation group and 6.32 minutes in the standard-care group, a difference reported as not statistically significant (p=0.449).

Supporting evidence: The trial reported statistically significant group differences favoring yoga-based rehabilitation in the physical-health, psychological-health and environment domains of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. It also reported lower anxiety and stress scores and higher self-reported physical activity on the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. The study was prospectively registered in India’s clinical-trial registry and received ethics approval, which strengthens confidence that this was a planned randomized comparison rather than a retrospective analysis.

The authors concluded that yoga-based rehabilitation can be considered a complementary strategy alongside conventional cardiac rehabilitation. That conclusion is broadly consistent with the reported patient-centered outcomes, but it should be read in the context of the trial’s primary endpoint.

Limitations and competing evidence: The strongest limitation is that the primary outcome was not statistically significant in the intention-to-treat analysis. That result does not establish that the program improves objective exercise capacity over standard care for the enrolled population. The study also reported a statistically significant per-protocol result among participants who complied with the yoga intervention. However, per-protocol analyses are more vulnerable to differences between adherent and non-adherent participants than the original randomized comparison. The reported median values in that subgroup analysis also do not straightforwardly show the direction described by the authors, making that finding unsuitable for a strong claim pending review of the final article and supplementary data.

The trial followed participants to six months, included a predominantly male sample, and was conducted in one clinical setting in India. Its findings therefore do not establish effects in other populations, over longer periods, or in other models of cardiac rehabilitation. The reported results also do not show a significant reduction in major adverse cardiovascular or cerebrovascular events, such as recurrent cardiac events.

Current conclusion: A cautious reading is that structured yoga-based rehabilitation after PCI improved several self-reported well-being outcomes in this trial, while failing to show a statistically significant benefit on its prespecified treadmill-capacity endpoint. The evidence supports studying and offering such programs as a clinician-supervised complement where appropriate; it does not establish that yoga replaces standard cardiac rehabilitation, improves objective exercise capacity overall, or prevents future cardiovascular events. The final Version of Record, including its intervention, adherence, safety and cardiovascular-event details, could materially refine that assessment.