Long‐term clinical outcomes in patients treated with drug‐eluting compared to bare‐metal stents for the treatment of transplant coronary artery disease

Objective: We aimed to compare the long-term clinical outcomes of first-vessel percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug-eluting stents (DES) and bare metal stents (BMS) for the treatment of transplant coronary artery disease (TCAD). Background: TCAD is the leading cause of late death in orthotopic heart transplantation (OHT) recipients. PCI is associated with worse clinical outcomes compared with non-OHT patients. Our institution previously reported superior angiographic outcomes with DES compared with BMS in OHT patients. However, long-term clinical outcomes comparing PCI with DES versus BMS are lacking. Methods: The data on 105 OHT recipients who underwent first-vessel PCI with DES (n = 58) or BMS (n = 47) at UCLA Medical Center between 1995 and 2009 were retrospectively analyzed. Results: Five-year clinical outcomes were not significantly different with DES and BMS in terms of the composite of death, myocardial infarction (MI), or target vessel revascularization (TVR) [(40.8 ± 7.2)% vs. (59.6 ± 7.2)%, log-rank P = 0.33], death [(31.8 ± 7.8)% vs. (40.4 ± 7.2)%, log-rank P = 0.46], MI [(12.2 ± 6.2)% vs. (11.3 ± 5.4)%, log rank P = 0.98], TVR [(25.5 ± 6.9)% vs. (26.5 ± 7.3)%, log rank P = 0.76], and time to repeat OHT [(2.27 ± 1.79) vs. (3.22 ± 3.34), P = 0.98]. Conclusions: At long-term follow-up, PCI with DES and BMS provided similar clinical outcomes in OHT. Long-term mortality remains high in OHT recipients after PCI with either DES or BMS. Randomized clinical trials are required to determine the optimal treatment strategy for OHT recipients with TCAD. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.