Long-term outcomes comparison of different types of DES in elderly patients from a real-world experience.

Objective: We sought to evaluate the impact on long-term clinical outcomes of different types of drug-eluting stents (DES) in elderly patients.

Background: Elderly patients constitute a fast-growing portion of cardiovascular patients, however, they are not adequately represented in clinical trials. Moreover, few data comparing different type of DES in elderly patients are available.

Methods: From a total of 2,330 consecutive patients treated at our institution with DES, we selected 207 elderly patients (> or = 75 years of age) who underwent, from May 2002 to December 2006, sirolimus-eluting stent (SES group, 116 patients [pts], 56%) or paclitaxel-eluting stent (PES group, 91 pts, 43.9%) implantation. We evaluated the 24-month incidence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE).

Results: Higher rates of hypertension (78.4% vs. 90.1%; p = 0.01), diabetes (37.9 vs. 45.1; p = 0.01) and previous coronary artery bypass grafts (10.3% vs. 19.4%; p = 0.04) in the PES group were observed, whereas in the SES group, there were more smokers (26.6% vs. 12.1%; p = 0.007) and a higher incidence of previous myocardial infarction (MI) (50% vs. 35.2%; p = 0.02). Procedural success and in-hospital MACE were similar in both groups. At follow up, there was a higher incidence of MACE (22.4% vs. 10.9%; p = 0.04) and target lesion revascularization (7.1% vs. 3.0%; p = 0.02) in the SES group compared to the PES group. The incidence of cardiac death and MI were comparable between the two groups, as well as the rate of stent thrombosis. After adjustment for clinical and angiographic characteristics, no significant differences in outcomes were observed between SES and PES.

Conclusions: In this real-word experience, no significant differences were found in the safety and efficacy profiles between SES and PES use in elderly patients.