Pronounced benefit of coronary stenting and adjunctive platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibition in complex atherosclerotic lesions.

BACKGROUND Previous trials testing stents compared with balloon angioplasty excluded patients with complex lesions and did not assess the effect of adjunctive platelet IIb/IIIa inhibition. This analysis sought to assess the effect of stenting and abciximab specifically for patients with complex lesions. METHODS AND RESULTS Patients with complex lesions (long, tandem, severely calcified, restenotic, thrombotic, or ostial; total occlusions; bifurcations; saphenous vein grafts; and multivessel interventions) from the Evaluation of PTCA to Improve Long-Term Outcome by c7E3 GP IIb/IIIa Receptor Blockade (EPILOG) and the Evaluation of Platelet IIb/IIIa Inhibitor for Stenting (EPISTENT) trials were included in the analysis. The 1-year combined death or myocardial infarction rates in the 4 treatment groups were as follows: balloon angioplasty/placebo, 14.2%; stent/placebo, 15.8%; balloon angioplasty/abciximab, 7.6%; and stent/abciximab, 8.0% (P<0.001). Death rates were 3.2%, 3.1%, 2.1%, and 0.5%, respectively (P=0.03). The incidence of target vessel revascularization at 1 year was 30.5%, 18.0%, 24.4%, and 19.7% in the 4 groups, respectively (P<0.001). After adjustment for baseline differences, multivariate analysis demonstrated that the rate of death or myocardial infarction was independently reduced by balloon angioplasty/abciximab (hazard ratio, 0.51; P<0.001) and stent/abciximab (hazard ratio, 0.60; P=0.02) but was not affected by the use of stents alone. Conversely, target vessel revascularization was reduced by stent/placebo (hazard ratio, 0.53; P<0.001), stent/abciximab (hazard ratio, 0.58; P<0.001), and balloon angioplasty/abciximab (hazard ratio, 0.74; P=0.006) compared with balloon angioplasty/placebo, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The combination of stenting and abciximab during percutaneous coronary interventions for patients with angiographically complex lesions confers additive long-term benefit with respect to death, myocardial infarction, and target vessel revascularization.