Stent thrombosis and drug-eluting stents

Coronary stents have been used for the treatment of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), and significantly improved procedural safety and are associated with a lower rate of restenosis compared with balloon angioplasty alone. Drug-eluting stents (DES) have been dominant for the treatment of CAD with efficacy in significantly reducing both restenosis and target lesion revascularization. However, late and very late stent thrombosis have become a major concern in DES-implanted arteries compared with those treated with bare-metal stents (BMS). This review focuses on the feature of DES thrombosis and pathological examination and dual antiplatelet therapy for prevention of stent thrombosis. Currently, the incidence of stent thrombosis associated with first-generation and second-generation DES remains unclear in data from real-world cohort registry studies. Further studies of larger multicenter trials would give us insight into the specific mechanisms of stent thrombosis among different generations of DES.