Treating very-long coronary artery disease in the contemporary drug eluting stent era: Single long 48 mm stent versus two overlapping stents showed comparable clinical outcomes

Abstract Background/purpose Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) of diffuse coronary artery disease (CAD) is associated with higher adverse clinical events. This study aimed to compare the clinical outcomes of patients treated with single long 48 mm contemporary drug eluting stents (SL-DES) versus two overlapping contemporary drug eluting stents (OL-DES) for very-long CAD. Methods/materials We analyzed the clinical outcome of 117 patients with SL-DES and 101 patients with OL-DES who underwent PCI between 1st July 2013 to 31st December 2016. The primary endpoint was target lesion failure (TLF) at two years, defined as a composite of cardiac mortality, target vessel myocardial infarction and target lesion revascularization. Results Mean age was 60.8 ± 10.5 years for SL-DES group and 60.5 ± 11.9 years in the OL-DES group. SL-DES has longer mean lesion length as compared to OL-DES (43.1 ± 3.7 mm vs. 41.83 ± 2.3 mm p = 0.003). There was no difference in TLF at two years between SL-DES and OL-DES (5.3% vs. 6.4%, adjusted odds ratio 1.43, 95% CI 0.50–4.11). There was one case of probable ST in each group. Contrast volume usage was lower for SL-DES than OL-DES in patients who underwent single vessel PCI. Conclusions Treatment of very-long CAD showed comparable TLF at two years for SL-DES versus OL-DES. Our results suggest that both strategies are reasonable treatment options for patients with diffuse CAD.