Relationship between high platelet reactivity on clopidogrel and long-term clinical outcomes after drug-eluting stents implantation (PAINT-DES): a prospective, propensity score-matched cohort study

BACKGROUND: The relationship between platelet reactivity and long-term clinical outcomes remains controversial. The present prospective study was designed to explore the association between high platelet reactivity (HPR) on clopidogrel and long-term clinical outcomes following implantation of drug eluting stents (DES). METHODS: A total of 1769 consecutive patients assessed by Aggrestar (PL-11) were enrolled at our center from February 2011 to December 2017. The primary end point was major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE), defined as definite or probable stent thrombosis, spontaneous myocardial infarction, all cause death, clinically driven target vessel revascularization (TVR), or ischemic stroke. Bleeding served as the safety endpoint. Propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was performed to adjust for baseline differences in the overall cohort. RESULTS: Finally, 409 patients (23.1%) were identified with HPR on clopidogrel. At a median follow-up of 4.1 years (interquartile range, 1.8 years), the occurrence of MACCE was significantly higher in HPR on clopidogrel group than normal platelet reactivity (NPR) on clopidogrel group (15.6% vs. 5.4%, p < 0.001). After PSM, 395 paired patients were matched, and the difference in MACCE between HPR (15.7%) versus NPR (9.4%) on clopidogrel groups remained significant (P < 0.001), mainly driven by increased all cause death (5.3% vs. 1.8%, p < 0.001), and clinically driven TVR (8.1% vs. 6.3%, p = 0.019) in the HPR group. The risk of bleeding between two groups was similar. CONCLUSIONS: This prospective study confirms the relationship between HPR on clopidogrel and long-term adverse cardiovascular events after coronary stenting. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12872-018-0841-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.