Clinical performance of drug-eluting stents with biodegradable polymeric coating: a meta-analysis and systematic...

Different biodegradable-polymer drug-eluting stents have not yet been systematically analysed. We sought to; 1) evaluate the risk of target lesion revascularisation (TLR) and definite stent thrombosis (DST) among different groups of biodegradable-polymer (BioPol) DES, and 2) to compare them with permanent polymer (PermPol) DES.

We searched PubMed and relevant sources from January 2005 until October 2010. Inclusion criteria were (a) Implantation of a drug-eluting stent with biodegradable polymer; (b) available follow-up data for at least one of the clinical end-points (TLR/DST) at short term (30 days) and/or mid-term (one year). A total of 22 studies, including randomised and observational studies, with 8264 patients met the selection criteria; nine studies (2042 patients) in whom biodegradable-polymer sirolimus eluting stents (BioPol-SES) were implanted, eight studies (1731 patients) in whom biodegradable-polymer paclitaxel eluting stents (BioPol-PES) were implanted, and seven studies (4491 patients) in whom biodegradable-polymer biolimus-A9 eluting stents (BioPol-BES) were implanted. At 30 days, there was a higher risk of DST (p=0.04) and subsequently TLR (p=0.006) in the BioPol-BES compared to BioPol-SES, with no significant difference in the other stent comparisons. At 1-year, there was higher risk of TLR in the BioPol-PES (p=0.01), and the BioPol-SES (p=0.04) compared to BioPol-BES. One-year stent thrombosis was not statistically different between the studied groups (overall p=0.2). In another analysis comprising seven randomised trials comparing BioPol-DES (3778 patients) and PermPol-DES (3291 patients), the risks of TLR and stent thrombosis at 1-year were not significantly different (p=0.5 for both).

Performance of different BioPol-DES seems to vary from each other. The short- and mid-term success rates may not be superimposable. Furthermore, they may not be necessarily better than PermPol-DES.