Sirolimus-Eluting Stents vs Uncoated Stents for the Treatment of Proximal Left Anterior Descending Coronary Artery Stenosis

Sirolimus-eluting stents (SES) have demonstrated low incidence of target vessel revascularizations in several anatomic scenarios, including proximal left anterior descending coronary artery (pLAD) lesions. The aim of present study was to compare the efficacy of SES with bare metal stents (BMS) for the treatment of such lesions. 96 patients with severe pLAD stenosis treated with SES were included. Clinical follow-up were performed during a 24 month period. A 98 patient sample with pLAD lesions treated with BMS was taken as control group. Death, angiographic restenosis, new target lesion revascularization (TLR) and target vessel failure (TVF) were registered. Clinical, angiographic and procedural variables were analysed to identify predictors of TVF and TLR. Angiographic procedural success was 100% in SES group vs 99% in BMS group (p=1.0). At 2.5 years, the cumulative rate of TVF was 9.4% in SES group vs 16.3% in BMS group (p=0.15), and the rate of TLR was 5.2% in SES group vs 12.2% in control group (p=0.08). The probabilities of cumulative TVF and TLR free survival were in BMS group 83.7% and 87.8%, and in SES group 90.6% and 94.8%, respectively. After multivariate analysis only SES utilization was found as independent protective factor against TVF and TLR (HR 0.38, 95%CI [0.15-0.94] p=0.037 and HR 0.21, 95%CI [0.06-0.66] p=0.008, respectively), and diabetes as independent predictor of TFV and TLR (HR 2.37, 95%CI [1.07-5.24] p=0.034 and HR 3.57, 95%CI [1.29-9.87] p=0.014, respectively). This study demonstrates that SES utilization is safe and effective in the tretament of pLAD lesions with a better clinical outcome than BMS in a long-term follow-up.