Drug-Eluting Stents Lead to Fewer Adverse Cardiac Events

Lower rates of major adverse cardiac events at one year, compared to bare-metal stents
Drug-Eluting Stents Lead to Fewer Adverse Cardiac Events

TUESDAY, Aug. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Among ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients, the use of biolimus-eluting stents with biodegradable polymer results in a lower rate of major adverse cardiac events, compared with patients with bare-metal stents, at one year following primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), according to a study published in the Aug. 22/29 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Lorenz Räber, M.D., from the Bern University Hospital in Switzerland, and colleagues conducted a prospective, single-blinded, controlled trial, in which 1,161 STEMI patients at 11 sites in Europe and Israel (Sept. 19, 2009, to Jan. 25, 2011) were randomized (1:1) to receive the biolimus-eluting stent (575 patients) or the bare-metal stent (582 patients).

The researchers found that, at one year, 24 patients (4.3 percent) receiving biolimus-eluting stents with biodegradable polymer had major adverse cardiac events, as did 49 patients (8.7 percent) receiving bare-metal stents (hazard ratio [HR], 0.49). A significantly lower risk of target vessel-related reinfarction (0.5 versus 2.7 percent; HR, 0.20) and ischemia-driven target-lesion revascularization (1.6 versus 5.7 percent; HR, 0.28) in patients receiving biolimus-eluting stents, compared with those receiving bare-metal stents, drove the difference in adverse cardiac events. Cardiac death rates were not significantly different between the groups (2.9 versus 3.5 percent).

"Compared with a bare-metal stent, the use of biolimus-eluting stents with a biodegradable polymer resulted in a lower rate of the composite of major adverse cardiac events at one year among patients with STEMI undergoing primary PCI," the authors write.

Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries.

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