ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: In patients treated with bare metal stents and earlygeneration drug-eluting stents (DES) smaller stent diameter (SD) has been associated with worse long-term outcomes after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Data on the impact of small SD on outcomes after PCI with third generation DES is scarce. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of SD on clinical outcomes, using a third generation sirolimus-eluting coronary stent with thin struts and abluminal biodegradable polymer. METHODS: Consecutive patients treated with Inspiron® (Scitech, Brazil) in native coronary arteries lesions between June 2017 and January 2022 were included, in a total of 25 Brazilian centers. Patients were grouped according to SD: 3.50mm. One-year event rates were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and adjusted hazard ratios were generated using Cox regression analysis. The primary endpoint was a composite of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) defined by the composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction (MI) or target-lesion revascularization (TLR) at 12 months. RESULTS: Of the 2,803 patients who underwent PCI with Inspiron®, 24,5% (n = 688) had SD ≤2.50 mm, 45.0% (n = 1,263) had SD 2.75-3.00mm and 30,4% (n = 852) had SD >3.50 mm. At 1 year, MACE rates were 3.1%, 2.1% and 1.3%, respectively, with increasing SD (p = 0.054). Death due to CV causes at 12 months rates decreased with increasing SD (2.9%, 1.8% and 0.8%, respectively [p < 0.009]) whereas rates of MI related study device at 12 months across SD groups were comparable (0.0%, 0.5%, and 0.1%, respectively [p = 0.086]). After multivariate stepwise Cox regression, smaller SD remained associated with higher rates of MACE (HR 0.46, 95%CI of 0.241-0.890; p=0.022). As seen in Figure 1, the risk of MACE is significantly increased in the first 30 days and remain higher up to 12 months among individuals with mean vessel diameter <2.50mm. CONCLUSIONS: In a large cohort of patients undergoing PCI with third generation DES MACE rates were low, but still higher among patients with smaller SD, mainly drive by higher CV deaths at 12 months. Further research into the optimal treatment strategy of small coronary arteries is still warranted.
