Aims Consensus is lacking regarding the best treatment for coronary in-stent restenosis (ISR). The two most effective treatments are angioplasty with paclitaxel-coated balloon (PCB) and repeat stenting with drug-eluting stent (DES) but individual trials were not statistically powered for clinical endpoints, results were heterogeneous, and evidence about comparative efficacy and safety in relevant subsets was limited. Methods and results The Difference in Anti-restenotic Effectiveness of Drug-eluting stent and drug-coated balloon AngiopLasty for the occUrrence of coronary in-Stent restenosis (DAEDALUS) study was a comprehensive, investigator-initiated, collaborative, individual patient data meta-analysis comparing angioplasty with PCB alone vs. repeat stenting with DES alone for the treatment of coronary ISR. The protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42017075007). All 10 available randomized clinical trials were included with 1976 patients enrolled, 1033 assigned to PCB and 943 to DES. At 3-year follow-up, PCB was associated with a significant increase in the risk of target lesion revascularization (TLR) compared with DES [hazard ratio (HR) 1.32, 95% CI 1.02–1.70, P = 0.035; number-needed-to-harm 28.5]. There was a significant interaction between treatment effect and type of restenosed stent (P = 0.029) with a more marked difference in patients with DES-ISR and comparable effects in patients with bare-metal stent-ISR. At 3-year follow-up, the primary safety endpoint of all-cause death, myocardial infarction, or target lesion thrombosis was comparable between treatments (HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.58–1.09, P = 0.152). A pre-specified subgroup analysis indicated a significant interaction between treatment effect and type of DES used to treat ISR (P = 0.033), with a lower incidence of events associated with PCB compared with first-generation DES and similar effect between PCB and second-generation DES (HR 1.06, 95% CI 0.71–1.60, P = 0.764). Long-term all-cause mortality was similar between PCB and DES (HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.53–1.22, P = 0.310); results were consistent comparing PCB and non-paclitaxel-based DES (HR 1.42, 95% CI 0.80–2.54, P = 0.235). Myocardial infarction and target lesion thrombosis were comparable between treatments. Conclusions In patients with coronary ISR, repeat stenting with DES is moderately more effective than angioplasty with PCB at reducing the need for TLR at 3 years. The incidence of a composite of all-cause death, myocardial infarction, or target lesion thrombosis was similar between groups. The rates of individual endpoints, including all-cause mortality, were not significantly different between groups.

In contrast, drug-eluting balloon (DEB) catheters allow short-term passage of the active substance into the vascular Background-The aim of this prospective randomized noninferiority study was to compare the efficacy of paclitaxeleluting balloon (PEB) catheters and everolimus-eluting stents (EES) in the treatment of bare metal stent restenosis. Methods and Results-A total of 136 patients were enrolled in the study. Each treatment group included 68 patients with 74 in-stent restenotic lesions. The primary end point was in-segment late lumen loss (LLL) at 12 months. Secondary end points were the incidence of binary in-stent restenosis and 12-month major adverse cardiac events. The 2-sided 95% confidence interval of LLL difference between treatments (0.149-0.558) was greater than noninferiority margin (0.12), which demonstrates both noninferiority and superiority of PEB treatment. Furthermore, the PEB group had significantly less 12-month LLL than the EES group (0.02 versus 0.19 mm; P=0.0004).