Aim: Self-expanding stents represent a re-emerging option for percutaneous coronary interventions. Their application covers a wide spectrum of angiographic situations, i.e., coronary bifurcations, acute coronary syndromes with large thrombotic burden and stenosis of ectatic coronaries. We review our experience with self-expanding stents for different clinical and angiographic indications, with long clinical follow-up.
Methods: From 2011 to 2013 we used self-expanding STENTYS® stents in 40 consecutive patients followed-up for death from any cause and from cardiovascular cause, myocardial infarction, target lesion revascularization (TLR), stent thrombosis (mean 21±13months). We also revised rate of procedural outcomes, acute stent thrombosis and TLR in patients treated with conventional stents for similar clinical/angiographic situations, in the same period at our institution.
Results: We identified three anatomical settings of STENTYS® use: coronary bifurcations with proximal/distal main branch diameter discrepancy (55% of cases), massive thrombotic burden in the setting of acute coronary syndrome (35% of cases) and stenosis of ectatic coronaries (15%). We observed one death related to acute heart failure and 1 case (2.5%) of acute stent thrombosis (2.5% in the control group). During follow-up 2 cases of stent restenosis leading to TLR (5%) occurred (6.25% in the control group).
Conclusions: According to our real life experience, self-expanding STENTYS® stents appear to be an effective tool for different angiographic situations in which they may be preferable to balloon-expandable stents, showing a low rate of complications and good results at long term follow-up.
Keywords: Coronary artery ectasia; Coronary bifurcations; Self-expanding stent; Thrombotic burden.
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