Drug-eluting stents: from randomized trials to the real world

Drug-eluting stents have been developed to prevent in-stent restenosis following percutaneous coronary revascularization. In a number of randomized trials, polymer-coated sirolimus- and paclitaxel-eluting stents have been proven to markedly reduce the incidence of angiographic restenosis and repeat revascularization when compared to bare metal stents. Effectiveness of sirolimus-eluting stents in the prevention of restenosis has been confirmed in many subsets of patients and lesions not included in randomized trials, such as in-stent restenosis, chronic total occlusion, acute myocardial infarction, and others. Very promising data in the real world are emerging for utilization of paclitaxel-eluting stents as well. Other drug-eluting stents gave less brilliant results or even true failures, whilst a number of new drugs and stent platforms are under clinical or preclinical evaluation. In this review we describe the main clinical trials on drug-eluting stents, and the most recent informations derived from observational studies and registries. Moreover, preliminary results on new drug-eluting stents are summarized.