Comparison of long‐term outcomes of drug‐eluting stents and bare metal stents for saphenous vein graft stenosis

OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to compare the long-term outcomes between drug-eluting stents and bare-metal stents for saphenous vein graft stenosis. BACKGROUND: The ideal type of stent to treat saphenous vein graft stenosis has not been clearly established. Short-term randomized controlled trial results comparing drug-eluting stents with bare-metal stents for saphenous vein graft stenosis are conflicting, intermediate-term retrospective studies and meta-analyses at two years suggest no difference in outcomes, and there are no long term follow-up studies. The need for long term follow-up data has become emerged with concern over late stent thrombosis. METHODS: 246 saphenous vein graft patients undergoing stenting from August 2002-December 2008 were studied. Overall survival and event-free survival were compared by Kaplan-Meier method. Hazard ratios (HR) were calculated by Cox-proportional hazards models. RESULTS: We treated 133 patients with DES (median follow-up four years) and 113 patients with BMS (median follow-up four years) for SVG stenosis. Overall survival (77.0% ± 3.9% vs. 70.6% ± 4.6%, log-rank P = 0.60) and MACE-free survival (57.5% ± 4.6% vs. 56.8% ± 4.9, log-rank P = 0.70) were not significantly different between the DES and BMS groups. Although BMS was associated with increased risk of target lesion revascularization (TLR) (freedom from TLR 85.2% ± 3.5% vs. 90.0% ± 3.0%, HR 2.07, 95% CI 0.97-4.42, log-rank P = 0.05), there was no significant difference in the freedom from myocardial infarction (86.7% ± 3.3% vs. 88.7% ± 3.2%, log-rank P = 0.39) or target vessel revascularization (77.1% ± 4.2% vs. 76.1% ± 4.2%, log-rank P = 0.33) between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Although mortality is not statistically different between DES and BMS for SVG stenosis, BMS is associated with increased risk of revascularization, thus suggesting the superiority of DES over BMS in the long term.