Three-year clinical follow-up of an unselected patient population treated with the genous endothelial progenitor cell capturing stent.

Background: We assessed the 3-year clinical outcome in our single-center cohort of mainly unselected patients treated with the endothelial progenitor cell capturing stent (ECS). The ECS is coated with CD34+ antibodies specifically targeting the circulating endothelial progenitor cells population to accelerate endothelialization that in turn may prevent the occurrence of in-stent restenosis and stent thrombosis (ST).

Methods: All patients in our study had coronary artery lesions that were treated with an ECS. The majority of patients had complex lesions with an estimated high risk of restenosis.

Results: A total of 405 patients were enrolled. The primary end-point of target lesion failure (TLF) was defined as the composite of cardiac death, myocardial infarction, and target lesion revascularization (TLR). At 3 years, TLF was 18.3% and TLR was 14.2%. Early ST occurred in 2 patients. No cases of late and very late definite ST were reported.

Conclusions: This single-center study demonstrates the safety at 3 years of the ECS in an unselected patient population, including a fair number of patients with complex lesions, reflecting daily practice. Our data compare well with drug-eluting stent and bare metal stent registries enrolling unselected patient populations. Importantly, in our analysis, no cases of late or very late definite ST were reported.