Long-term effects of drug-eluting stents versus bare metal stents on patients with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention: outcomes of 3-year clinical follow-up.

Background: The long-term safety and efficacy of drug-eluting stents (DES) versus bare metal stents (BMS) are unclear and controversial issues in patients with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The purpose of this study was to compare the long-term outcome of STEMI patients undergoing primary PCI with DES versus BMS implantation.

Methods: A total of 191 patients with acute STEMI undergoing PCI from Jan. 2005 to Dec. 2007 were enrolled. Patients received DES (n = 83) or BMS (n = 108) implantation in the infarction related artery according to physician's discretion. The primary outcome was the occurrence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE), which was defined as a composite of death, myocardial infarction (MI), target vessel revascularization (TVR) and stent thrombosis. The difference of MACE was observed between DES and BMS groups.

Results: The clinical follow-up duration was 3 years ((41.7 ± 16.1) months). MACE occurred in 20 patients during three years follow-up. Logistic regression analysis showed that the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was an independent predictor for MACE in the follow-up period (P = 0.0301). There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality (3.61% vs. 7.41%, P = 0.2647), the incidence of myocardial infarction (0 vs. 0.93%, P = 0.379) and stent thrombosis (1.20% vs. 1.85%, P = 0.727) between the DES group and BMS group. The incidence of MACE was significantly lower in the DES group compared to the BMS group (4.82% vs. 14.81%, P = 0.0253). The rate of TVR was also lower in the DES group (0 vs. 5.56%, P = 0.029). In the DES group, there was no significant difference in the incidence of MACE between sirolimus eluting stents (SES, n = 73) and paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES, n = 10) subgroups (2.74% vs. 20.00%, P > 0.05).

Conclusions: This finding suggested that drug-eluting stents significantly reduced the need for revascularization in patients with acute STEMI, without increasing the incidence of death or myocardial infarction. Use of DES significantly decreased the incidence of MACE compared with BMS during the 3-year follow-up.