Long-Term Clinical Outcome of Early Generation Versus New-Generation Drug-Eluting Stents in 481 Patients Undergoing Rotational Atherectomy: A Retrospective Analysis

INTRODUCTION: New-generation drug-eluting stents (NG-DES) are superior to early generation DES (EG-DES) in the majority of lesion and patient subsets, but comparative data in patients with severely calcified coronary lesions are lacking. This study aims to compare clinical outcomes of EG-DES and NG-DES in patients undergoing rotational atherectomy (RA) in calcified lesions. METHODS: Data of 268 patients (288 lesions) treated with EG-DES and 213 patients (225 lesions) receiving NG-DES after RA were retrospectively analyzed from a single-center registry. All major adverse cardiac events (MACE) were assessed at 2 years. RESULTS: Compared to the EG-DES group, patients with NG-DES more commonly had diabetes mellitus (31.9% vs. 40.9%; p = 0.04), left main lesions (7.6% vs. 17.3%; p < 0.001) and chronic total occlusions (3.5% vs. 8.5%; p = 0.016), and had a higher total stent length (30.5, IQR 20–40 mm, vs. 38, IQR 22–53 mm, p < 0.001). The Kaplan–Meier estimated rate of cardiovascular events at 2 years showed a lower incidence of death (13.5% vs. 8.2%, log-rank p = 0.13; adjusted HR after Cox regression analysis 0.49; 95% CI 0.26–0.92; p = 0.03) and a lower MACE rate (31.1% vs. 21.1%, log-rank p = 0.04; adjusted HR 0.65; 95% CI 0.42–0.98; p = 0.04) in the NG-DES group. CONCLUSIONS: Although RA is performed in more complex patients and lesions in the NG-DES era, use of NG-DES is associated with lower rates of death and MACE at 2 years as compared to EG-DES.