Impacts of lesion angle on incidence and distribution of acute vessel wall injuries and strut malapposition after drug-eluting stent implantation assessed by optical coherence tomography.

Aims: To investigate the impact of lesion angle on the incidence and distribution of acute vessel wall injuries and incomplete stent apposition (ISA) following second-generation drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation using optical coherence tomography (OCT). Several ex vivo studies demonstrated that angled arterial walls are exposed to imbalanced mechanical stress from deployed stents.

Methods And Results: We included 243 lesions treated with a single DES (148 everolimus-eluting stent and 95 zotarolimus-eluting stent).