WEDNESDAY, Oct. 14, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- A drug-coated stent is superior to a bare-metal stent for patients at high risk for bleeding who undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), according to a study published online Oct. 14 in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting, held from Oct. 11 to 15 in San Francisco.
Philip Urban, M.D., from Hôpital de la Tour in Switzerland, and colleagues conducted a randomized, double-blind trial to compare a drug-coated stent with a similar bare-metal stent in 2,466 patients with high bleeding risk undergoing PCI. Participants received one month of dual antiplatelet therapy.
The researchers found that the primary safety end point (composite of cardiac death, myocardial infarction, and stent thrombosis) occurred in 9.4 percent of the drug-coated-stent group and in 12.9 percent of the bare-metal-stent group (hazard ratio, 0.71). The primary efficacy end point (clinically driven target-lesion revascularization) occurred in 5.1 percent of the drug-coated-stent group and in 9.8 percent of the bare-metal-stent group (hazard ratio, 0.5).
"A polymer-free umirolimus-coated stent was superior to a bare-metal stent with respect to the primary safety and efficacy end points when used with a one-month course of dual antiplatelet therapy," the authors write.
The study was funded by Biosensors Europe.
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