OBJECTIVES: Patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) represent a group of patients with a high-risk of cardiovascular events. Limited information exists in the literature on patient characteristics and drug treatments before and after PCI in China. The primary objective of this research was to assess the use of lipid-lowering and antiplatelet therapy prior to and post PCI. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective, observational study on all patients who underwent PCI at a large urban hospital in Shanghai, China from 05/2010 to 06/2011.  Patient clinical and demographic characteristics were assessed; drug treatments, including statin and antiplatelet therapy, were compared prior to and post PCI.   RESULTS: A total of 565 patients (80.5% male) had PCI during the study period and were included in the analysis. Both the mean and median age was 65 years old (range 35 to 90).  At baseline, 71.7% had angina, 66.0% had hypertension, 31.0% had diabetes, 20.4% had hyperlipidemic pancreatitis, 14.3% had a history of myocardial infarction, and 13.8% had chronic kidney disease. 55.0% of patients were active smokers or previously smoked and PCI was not the first time for 10.6% of patients. Prior to the current PCI, the majority of patients were on aspirin (95.8%) and clopidogrel (99.8%), very few were on cilostazol (3.2%) and tirofiban (2.0%), and 70.6% of patients were on statins. The majority of patients (79.8%) received one stent with 20.2% of patients receiving two or more stents. Post PCI, the proportion of patients on statins increased significantly to 98.8% (p < 0.0001); there was little change in the proportion of patients on the other four drugs.    CONCLUSIONS: Patients who underwent PCI had significant prior comorbidities and risk factors of cardiovascular diseases. There was a significant increase in the proportion of patients on statins after PCI.