Drug-eluting stents: trading restenosis for thrombosis?

Within the last 6 years, it has been demonstrated that drug-eluting stents (DES) reduce significantly angiographic and clinical restenosis after percutaneous coronary interventions. These results are consistent across several clinical randomized controlled trials comparing these new devices with bare metallic stents (BMS), which themselves have already markedly improved the results obtained with balloon angioplasty in the early days of this method of myocardial revascularization. Nevertheless, some concerns have been raised regarding a delayed endothelialization of the coated prostheses leading to late stent thrombosis occurring mainly when antiplatelet therapy is discontinued in the follow-up. The most recent data show that, in comparison with BMS, there is a small excess of late (> 1 year) stent thrombosis but this is not associated with an increased risk of death or myocardial infarction or all cause mortality. These concerns do not outweigh the strong benefits of DES in preventing restenosis but require a number of measures concerning a longer dual antiplatelet treatment (than initially expected), to control patient treatment compliance and to provide a complete education of patients and physicians. Future devices dealing with the two issues (antiproliferative properties with rapid controlled endothelialization preventing thrombosis) would be the next major advance in this rapidly evolving field.