rospective randomized trials of coronary stenting using the Palmaz-Schatz (PS) stent (Cordis, Johnson & Johnson Interventional Systems, Miami, FL, USA) in stable angina 1,2 or acute myocardial infarction 3,4 have shown a reduced incidence of cardiac events associated with recurrent ischemia and a lessening of angiographic restenosis or occlusion. However, the PS stent has several disadvantages, including rigidity, difficult passage through tortuous anatomy or a site of calcification, poor scaffolding in the articulation site, and the need for multiple stents to treat lesions more than 15 mm in length. Therefore, several new (second generation) stents, including long stents, have been developed and can be more successfully delivered than the PS stent. The results of trials using the ACS MULTI-LINK (ML) stent (Guidant, Santa Clara, CA, USA), one of the recently developed stents, were similar to or slightly better than those of trials using the PS stent. 5,6 However, the follow-up periods in those trials were less than 9 months, so little is known about long-term (>12 months) outcome after ML stent implantation. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to evaluate the relatively long-term clinical outcome (2 years) of patients with coronary artery disease treated with the ML Circulation Journal Vol.66, October 2002 stent and to determine independent factors correlated with target lesion revascularization and cardiac events.
Methods
Patient PopulationThe study population consisted of 82 consecutive patients who had undergone successful coronary ML stent implantation for coronary artery disease (acute myocardial infarction in 29 patients, unstable angina in 17 and stable angina in 36) from January 1997 to December 1999. All the enrolled patients gave written informed consent, and the study protocol was based on the regulations of the hospital's ethics committee.The clinical characteristics, which included age, gender, coronary risk factors (hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes mellitus, smoking), indications for angioplasty, site of angioplasty, and drug treatment given after coronary stenting (nitrates, nicorandil, calcium antagonist, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, -blockers, and antiplatelet therapy), are shown in Table 1. Patients were defined as hypertensive if diastolic blood pressure was at least 90 mmHg and/or systolic blood pressure was at least 140 mmHg or if they were taking antihypertensive medication. Those patients whose serum total cholesterol concentration was at least 220 mg/dl or who were taking antihypercholesterolemic medication were defined as having hyperchoresterolemia. Those patients whose fasting glucose concentration was at least 126 mg/dl and/or hemoglobin A1c at least 6.5% before drug or dietary treatment for at Results of trials using the ACS MULTI-LINK (ML) stent, one of the new generation stents, were similar to or slightly better than those of trials using the Palmaz-Shatz stent. The purpose of this study was to evaluate relatively long-term (2 years) clinical outcom...