Healing and early stent coverage after ultrathin strut biodegradable polymer-coated sirolimus-eluting stent...

The aim of SiBi study was to evaluate the early vascular healing and neointimal coverage after implantation of ultrathin (60 μm) biodegradable polymer-coated Tetriflex (Sahajanand Medical Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Surat, India) sirolimus-eluting stent (SES) using optical coherence tomography (OCT) at 4 to 6 weeks after implantation.

SiBi was a single-center, observational, investigator-initiated study. From January 15, 2018 to April 15, 2018, total 29 consecutive patients who had consented and underwent OCT examination at 4-6 weeks after Tetriflex SES implantation were enrolled. All OCT images were analyzed at an independent core laboratory by analysts who were blinded to patient and procedural information.

Of 29 patients, four patients were excluded, as those OCT images were technically inadequate for analysis. Therefore, 25 patients were included in final OCT analysis. Average OCT analysis was performed after 35.3 ± 5 days of Tetriflex implantation. Total 14,024 stent struts in 1,520 cross sections were analyzed. Strut tissue coverage was observed in 91.26 ± 5.53% of struts and malapposed struts were seen in 0.89 ± 1.67%. The mean neointimal hyperplasia (NIH) thickness on the covered struts was 50 ± 30 μm.

A large percentage of struts were found to be covered with thin layer of NIH evenly distributed along the stent length at around 1 month from stent implantation. The results of this pilot study serve as ethical and scientific backbone to conduct an adequately powered clinical trial to evaluate outcomes of short dual-antiplatelet therapy in context of ultrathin strut stent.