Background: There still remain safety concerns on surgical procedures after coronary drug-eluting stents (DES) implantation, and optimal management of perioperative antiplatelet therapy (APT) has not been yet established.
Methods and results: During 3-year follow-up of 12 207 patients (DES=6802 patients and bare-metal stent [BMS] only=5405 patients) who underwent coronary stent implantation in the CREDO-Kyoto registry cohort-2, surgical procedures were performed in 2398 patients (DES=1295 patients and BMS=1103 patients). Surgical procedures (early surgery in particular) were more frequently performed in the BMS group than in the DES group (4.4% versus 1.9% at 42-day and 23% versus 21% at 3-year, log-rank P=0.0007). Cumulative incidences of death/myocardial infarction (MI)/stent thrombosis (ST) and bleeding at 30 days after surgery were low, without differences between BMS and DES (3.5% versus 2.9%, P=0.4 and 3.2% versus 2.1%, P=0.2, respectively). The adjusted risks of DES use relative to BMS use for death/MI/ST and bleeding were not significant (hazard ratio: 1.63, 95% confidence interval: 0.93 to 2.87, P=0.09 and hazard ratio: 0.6, 95% confidence interval: 0.34 to 1.06, P=0.08, respectively). The risks of perioperative single- and no-APT relative to dual-APT for both death/MI/ST and bleeding were not significant; single-APT as compared with dual-APT tended to be associated with lower risk for death/MI/ST (hazard ratio: 0.4, 95% confidence interval: 0.13 to 1.01, P=0.053).
Conclusions: Surgical procedures were commonly performed after coronary stent implantation, and the risk of ischemic and bleeding complications in surgical procedures was low. In patients selected to receive DES or BMS, there were no differences in outcomes. Perioperative administration of dual-APT was not associated with lower risk for ischemic events.