Two-year follow-up of percutaneous coronary intervention using EucaTax or Cypher.

Background: The EucaTax stent (EUPES) is a coronary stent with biodegradable polymer and camouflage coating that has been developed to promote the complete elution of drugs and decrease the risk of late complications. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the double-coated EUPES in patients with stable angina versus sirolimus-eluting stent CYPHER (SES) with permanent polymer coating.

Methods And Materials: The study included consecutive patient with at least 70% de novo coronary lesions in one or two native coronary arteries and who had undergone the coronary stenting using either EUPES or SES. We evaluated the 2-year major adverse cardiac events (MACE) rates, including total death (cardiac, non-cardiac), myocardial infarction (MI), target lesion revascularisation (TLR) and stent thrombosis.

Results: Between 2006 and 2009 this observational, prospective, single centre study included 602 patients (282 with EUPES and 320 with SES). At 2years, the rates of TLR (16.3% versus 6.25%; p=0.0001) and MACE (18.4% versus 7.8%; p=0.001) were significantly higher in the EUPES than in the SES group. The rate of TLR was significantly higher in the EUPES group compared with SES group in stenting of artery with a diameter less than 3mm, using stent length more than 18mm, as well as when the residual stenosis was more than 12%.

Conclusions: We found that EUPES was inferior to SES during the 2-year follow-up with respect to rates of MACE and TLR that were significantly higher in the EUPES than in the SES group.