An intravascular ultrasound analysis of the mechanisms of restenosis comparing drug-eluting stents with brachytherapy.

There are treatment failures after de novo drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation and after treatment with DESs or vascular brachytherapy (VBT) of in-stent restenosis (ISR) lesions. We studied 38 patients who presented with DES failure (26 patients after de novo DES implantation and 12 patients after DES treatment of ISR) and 30 patients who presented with VBT failure (all after treatment of ISR). Standard clinical data were collected and volumetric intravascular ultrasound was measured. Patients who presented with DES failures were 58.8 ± 9.6 years of age and those who presented with VBT failures were 59.8 ± 8.7 years of age; 60.5% of DES and 58.6% of VBT failures were in men; 31.5% of DES failures and 46.6% of VBT failures occurred in diabetic patients; and times to presentation were 210 ± 101 days in DES failures and 510 ± 527 days in VBT failures (p = 0.001). Minimal stent area was significantly larger in VBT than in the 2 DES failure groups (de novo DES implantation and DES treatment of ISR, p