Et tu, bare metal stent?

When performing percutaneous coronary revascularization, physicians nearly always supplement balloon angioplasty with a stent.1 This decision is based on evidence that stent implantation enhances the procedural success and durability of angioplasty. Benefits of stenting, compared with balloon angioplasty, include a reduction in the incidence of lesion recurrence, manifested as reduced need for repeat revascularization and lower rates of periprocedural myocardial infarction (MI).2–5 The major shortcoming of bare metal stents (BMS) is that 20% of native vessel and 30% of saphenous vein graft patients develop angiographic restenosis from neointimal hyperplasia. About half of these patients will have clinical restenosis and require repeat revascularization. In contrast to the favorable results of stents in de novo lesions, stenting of in-stent restenotic lesions with BMS results in more restenosis. Before the drug-eluting stent (DES) era, of multiple therapies investigated, only intracoronary brachytherapy was effective in preventing recurrent in-stent restenosis.6,7