Outcome of Overlapping Heterogenous Drug-Eluting Stents and of Overlapping Drug-Eluting and Bare Metal Stents

Overlapping homogenous drug-eluting stents (DESs) may be used instead of overlapping bare metal stents (BMSs) to treat coronary lesions longer than available stents. Yet, no data are available on patients treated with overlapping heterogenous DESs or DESs and BMSs. We prospectively assessed 9-month clinical outcome and 6-month angiographic late loss (evaluated at 5 different lesion segments) in a consecutive series of 40 patients who received overlapping homogenous DESs (sirolimus-eluting stent [SES] or paclitaxel-eluting stent [PES]), heterogenous DESs (SES + PES), or overlapping DESs and BMSs. In 8 patients (7 with angiographic follow-up) with overlapping heterogenous DESs, no angiographic or clinical adverse event was observed. Moreover, in-segment late loss was similar to that of patients who received homogenous DESs. In 8 patients (7 with angiographic follow-up) with overlapping DESs and BMSs, there was a higher incidence of major adverse events (3 repeat percutaneous coronary interventions and 1 death, 50% adverse event rate) and worse in-segment binary restenosis rate compared with patients treated with homogenous or heterogenous DESs (p = 0.02 and 0.012, respectively). Late lumen loss at the site of stent overlap showed significant differences according to type of overlapped stent (1.00 ± 0.76 mm in DES-BMS overlap, 0.32 ± 0.55 mm in PES-PES overlap, 0.13 ± 0.11 in SES-PES overlap, and 0.08 ± 0.10 mm in SES-SES overlap, p = 0.005). In conclusion, the present study suggests that overlap of DESs and BMSs should be avoided because the antirestenotic effect of DESs is skewed by contiguous BMS implantation. Overlap between SESs and PESs in this very preliminary report was associated with no specific adverse event.