OBJECTIVETo observe the incidence rate of stent thrombosis after implantation of drug-eluting stents (DES) in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) in the real world.

METHODSA total of 8190 consecutive CAD patients underwent implantation with Cypher or Cypher Select stents (Cordis, USA, n = 2986), TAXUS stents (Boston Scientific Corp., USA, n = 1587) and Chinese Rapamycin eluting stents (Firebird, Microport Medical Company, China, n = 3617) for enrolled in this single center registry study from Dec.2001 to April 2007. One-year follow-up was completed in 5412 patients (2210 Cypher or Cypher select stents, 1238 TAXUS stents and 1964 Firebird stents). Two-year follow-up was finished in 2176 patients (1245 Cypher or Cypher Select stents, 558 TAXUS stents and 373 Firebird stents). 80.1% of all the lesions were the type B2 and type C lesions. All patients were treated with aspirin plus clopidogrel for at least 9 months post DES.

RESULTSAmong 8190 patients, 17 patients had acute stent thrombosis (0.21%): 7 in the Cypher group, 4 in the TAXUS group, 6 in the Firebird group; 23 patients had subacute stent thrombosis (0.28%): 8 in Cypher group, 6 in TAXUS group and 9 in Firebird group. The incidence rate of acute and subacute thrombosis was 0.49% (40/8190) and incidence of thrombosis was similar among the three groups (0.50% in Cypher group, 0.63% in TAXUS group and 0.41% in Firebird group, P > 0.05). One-year follow-up showed that late thrombosis rate was 0.63 % (34/5412) and similar among the groups (0.63% in Cypher group, 0.89% in TAXUS group and 0.46% in Firebird group, P > 0.05). Two-year follow-up showed that late thrombosis rate was 0.74 % (16/2176) and was similar among the 3 groups (0.72% in Cypher group, 0.90% in TAXUS group and 0.54% in Firebird group, P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONThis study indicates that using the first-generation DES to treat complex coronary lesions is safe and effective and the incidence of late thrombosis remains low (< 1%) under double antiplatelet treatment.