Long-Term Clopidogrel Versus Aspirin Monotherapy After Drug-Eluting Stent Implantation: A Nationwide Real-World...

Lifelong antiplatelet maintenance therapy is required after drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. Although recent randomized studies have suggested potential benefits of clopidogrel monotherapy over aspirin, evidence from unselected real-world populations remains limited. Using a randomly sampled 20% representative cohort from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database, we identified patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with DES between 2002 and 2018. Among patients who remained event-free for 3 years after PCI, thereby defining a stable late chronic maintenance phase, treatment groups were defined by the prescribed antiplatelet agent within 30 days before the event or censoring. After 1:1 propensity score matching, 18,168 patients were analyzed. The primary endpoint was a composite of all-cause death, myocardial infarction (MI), ischemic stroke, and major bleeding during follow-up of up to 10 years. Secondary endpoints comprised 2 composite outcomes: an ischemic composite (MI, repeated revascularization, ischemic stroke, and cardiovascular death) and a hemorrhagic composite (intracranial hemorrhage and major bleeding). The primary composite endpoint did not differ between clopidogrel and aspirin groups (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.01, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.94 to 1.09; p = 0.85). Ischemic and hemorrhagic composite outcomes were also comparable (adjusted HR 0.94 [0.84 to 1.05] and 1.03 [0.92 to 1.14], respectively). No significant differences were observed in individual endpoints except for MI (adjusted HR 0.71 [0.58 to 0.87]; p = 0.001), favoring clopidogrel. In conclusion, in this nationwide real-world cohort of event-free survivors 3 years after DES PCI, aspirin, and clopidogrel showed comparable long-term efficacy and safety during the chronic maintenance phase over 10 years of follow-up, without a broad net clinical advantage of either strategy.