Background: Data regarding the efficacy of adjunctive balloon postdilation (ABP) at the site of two or more overlapping drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation in diffuse long lesion angioplasty are limited. This study was aimed to evaluate the efficacy of routine ABP to the overlapping DES sites in terms of clinical and angiographic outcomes.
Methods: We enrolled 88 patients (55 men, mean age 63.51+/-10.24 years), and 93 lesions with diffuse long lesion were treated with DES. The clinical and angiographic outcomes up to 6 months of 35 patients in the without routine ABP group were compared with those of 53 patients in the with ABP group.
Results: Baseline clinical characteristics, procedural characteristics, angiographic lesion length, lesion type and DES type were similar between the two groups. Late loss and binary restenosis at 6 months were similar between the two groups. The death, Q-wave myocardial infarction and the major adverse cardiac events were similar between the two groups (7.9 vs. 9.1% in ABP group, P=NS), but there was a trend toward lesser target lesion and vessel revascularization in no ABP group (2.6 vs. 9.0% in no ABP group, P=0.09).
Conclusion: The routine ABP at the overlapping site of DES implantations in a diffuse long coronary lesion showed no significant benefits in terms of angiographic and clinical outcomes compared with those of patients without routine ABP.