Two-year outcome of the use of paclitaxel-eluting stents in aorto-ostial lesions.

Background: Percutaneous treatment of stenoses involving aorto-ostial lesions is technically demanding and has been associated with lower procedural success and poorer clinical and angiographic outcomes when compared with non-ostial lesions. This study evaluated the immediate and long-term (2-year) outcome of aorto-ostial stenoses treated with paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES).

Methods: From February 2003 to December 2004, a total of 76 consecutive patients with 76 lesions underwent percutaneous intervention with PES for aorto-ostial lesions (right coronary artery, 37; left main, 26; saphenous vein graft, 13). All patients were clinically followed for the occurrence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE), defined as cardiac death, non-fatal myocardial infarction (MI), target lesion revascularization (TLR) or target vessel revascularization (TVR).

Results: All stents (1.7/lesion) were successfully deployed. Three lesions (3.9%) were pre-treated with debulking devices. Thirty-seven lesions (48.7%) were post-dilated with non-compliant balloons (balloon/artery ratio, 1.2). Stents were positioned protruding into the aortic lumen in 29 lesions (38.2%). Cumulative 2-year event-free survival was 68.4%. There was one angiographically-proven stent thrombosis occurring 427 days after TLR for restenosis after the index procedure. The restenosis rate at 7 months (median) was 20.0% and in-stent late lumen loss was 0.48 mm in 40 patients with angiographic follow-up.

Conclusions: Utilization of PES in this complex lesion subset is feasible and associated with favorable angiographic results at 7 months. However, the gradual increase in later events up to 2 years suggests that aorto-ostial disease remains problematic even in the era of drug-eluting stents.