for the NOBORI 1 Clinical InvestigatorsBackground-The newly developed Nobori coronary stent coated with a bioresorbable polymer, polylactic acid, and the antiproliferative agent Biolimus A9 has the potential to reduce restenosis by suppressing neointima formation. Methods and Results-We conducted a randomized (2:1), controlled trial comparing the Biolimus A9-eluting stent Nobori and the paclitaxel-eluting stent Taxus Liberté, in 243 patients (153 Nobori and 90 Taxus) at 29 centers in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Patients with previously untreated lesions in up to 2 native coronary arteries were considered for enrollment. The primary end point was in-stent late loss at 9 months, whereas secondary end points included other quantitative coronary angiography parameters, such as in-segment late loss and the rate of restenosis as well as key intravascular ultrasound parameters. Clinical secondary end points were stent thrombosis and composite of major adverse cardiac events comprising death, myocardial infarction, and target vessel revascularization. At 9 months, the in-stent late loss was significantly lower in the Nobori group compared with the Taxus group (0.11Ϯ0.30 mm versus 0.32Ϯ0.50 mm) reaching both the primary hypothesis of noninferiority of Nobori stent versus Taxus Liberté stent (PϽ0.001) and the secondary hypothesis of superiority (Pϭ0.001). This finding was confirmed by a significant reduction in binary restenosis from 6.2% in Taxus to 0.7% in Nobori (Pϭ0.02) and neointimal volume obstruction, detected by intravascular ultrasound, from 5.5Ϯ7.2% in Taxus to 1.8Ϯ5.2% in Nobori (Pϭ0.01). The major adverse cardiac events rate was 4.6% in the Nobori and 5.6% in the Taxus cohort of patients. The stent thrombosis rate was 0% in the Nobori arm and 4.4% in the Taxus arm. Conclusions-The NOBORI 1 clinical trial confirmed its primary hypothesis-noninferiority of the Nobori Biolimus A9-eluting stent versus the Taxus Liberté stent in reducing neointimal proliferation. Both stents showed a low major adverse cardiac events rate in the studied population. (Circ Cardiovasc Intervent. 2009;2:188-195.)

AimsCoronary late stent thrombosis, a rare but devastating complication, remains an important concern in particular with the increasing use of drug-eluting stents. Notably, pathological studies have indicated that the proportion of uncovered coronary stent struts represents the best morphometric predictor of late stent thrombosis. Intracoronary optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI), a novel second-generation optical coherence tomography (OCT)-derived imaging method, may allow rapid imaging for the detection of coronary stent strut coverage with a markedly higher precision when compared with intravascular ultrasound, due to a microscopic resolution (axial ∼10–20 µm), and at a substantially increased speed of image acquisition when compared with first-generation time-domain OCT. However, a histological validation of coronary OFDI for the evaluation of stent strut coverage in vivo is urgently needed. Hence, the present study was designed to evaluate the capacity of coronary OFDI by electron (SEM) and light microscopy (LM) analysis to detect and evaluate stent strut coverage in a porcine model.Methods and resultsTwenty stents were implanted into 10 pigs and coronary OFDI was performed after 1, 3, 10, 14, and 28 days. Neointimal thickness as detected by OFDI correlated closely with neointimal thickness as measured by LM (r = 0.90, P < 0.01). The comparison of stent strut coverage as detected by OFDI and SEM analysis revealed an excellent agreement (r = 0.96, P < 0.01). In particular, stents completely covered by OFDI analysis were also completely covered by SEM analysis. All incompletely covered stents by OFDI were also incompletely covered by SEM. Analyses of fibrin-covered stent struts suggested that these may rarely be detected as uncovered stent struts by OFDI. Importantly, optical density measurements revealed a significant difference between fibrin- and neointima-covered coronary stent struts [0.395 (0.35–0.43) vs. 0.53 (0.47–0.57); P < 0.001], suggesting that differences in optical density provide information on the type of stent strut coverage. The sensitivity and specificity for detection of fibrin vs. neointimal coverage was evaluated using receiver-operating characteristic analysis.ConclusionThe present study demonstrates that OFDI is a highly promising tool for accurate evaluation of coronary stent strut coverage, as supported by a high agreement between OFDI and light and electron microscopic analysis. Furthermore, our data indicate that optical density measurements can provide additional information with respect to the type of stent strut coverage, i.e. fibrin vs. neointimal coverage. Therefore, coronary OFDI analysis will provide important information on the biocompatibility of coronary stents.

PPCI with TB was associated with a similar flow area as well as stent area to PPCI without TB.

Leucodepleted plasma originating from leucodepleted whole blood maintains a satisfactory level of coagulation factors, even after the storage of whole blood for 18 h at room temperature before filtration.