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J Am Coll Cardiol, 2002; 40:403-409 © 2002 by the American College of Cardiology Foundation |






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* Laboratory of Interventional Cardiology, "Vita e Salute" University School of Medicine, San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy
EMO Centro Cuore Columbus, Milan, Italy
Institute of Medical Statistics and Biometry, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
Manuscript received February 5, 2002; revised manuscript received March 25, 2002, accepted April 17, 2002.
* Reprint requests and correspondence: Dr. Antonio Colombo, EMO Centro Cuore Columbus, Via Buonarroti 48, 20145 Milan, Italy.
columbus{at}micronet.it
| Abstract |
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BACKGROUND: Small vessel size (<3.0 mm) is an independent risk factor for the occurrence of in-stent restenosis. It has been reported that vessel damage induced during stent deployment is an important factor in restenosis.
METHODS: From our database, we selected all patients who had successful stenting in small native vessels, with angiographic follow-up available, between March 1996 and April 2001. The strut was defined as thin when <0.10 mm and thick when
0.10 mm. According to these criteria, we identified two subgroups: a thin group and a thick group.
RESULTS: A total of 821 (57%) of the 1,447 patients had angiographic follow-up available and were included in the analysis. The thin group included 400 patients with 505 lesions. The thick group included 421 patients with 436 lesions. The restenosis rate was 28.5% in the thin group and 36.6% in the thick group (p = 0.009; odds ratio [OR] 1.44, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.09 to 1.90). The study group was classified into three subgroups according to the reference vessel diameter:
2.50 mm, 2.51 to 2.75 mm and 2.76 to 2.99 mm. Strut thickness influenced the restenosis rate only in the subgroup with a reference vessel diameter between 2.76 and 2.99 mm, with rates of 23.5% in the thin group and 37% in the thick group (p = 0.006). By logistic regression analysis, predictors of restenosis were stent length (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.04; p = 0.001), strut thickness (OR 1.68, 95% CI 1.23 to 2.29; p = 0.001) and diabetes mellitus (OR 2.10, 95% CI 1.21 to 3.68; p = 0.007).
CONCLUSIONS: This study supports that strut thickness is an independent predictor of restenosis in coronary arteries with a reference diameter of 2.75 to 2.99 mm.
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The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether strut thickness may impact the restenosis rate after stent implantation in small coronary arteries.
| Methods |
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Stent implantation procedure. Intracoronary stenting was performed using techniques previously described (10). All patients received 325 mg aspirin before stent deployment. All patients received 70 IU/kg of an intra-arterial bolus of unfractionated heparin. Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors were administered according to the operators preference.
Definitions.
All stents with a strut thickness <0.10 mm were considered as thin, whereas all stents with a strut thickness
0.10 mm were considered as thick (11). Thin stents (thin group) included the Palmaz-Schatz (Cordis, Johnson & Johnson Company, Warren, New Jersey), ACS Multilink (Guidant Corp., Santa Clara, California), Biodyvisio (Biocompatibles Ltd., Surrey, UK), BeStent (Medtronic, Minneapolis, Minnesota), Jostent Flex (Jomed International AB, Helsingborg, Sweden), Diamond (Phytis Medical Devices GmbH, Berlin, Germany), V-Flex (Global Therapeutic, Inc., Bloomington, Indiana) and Carbostent (Sorin Biomedica Cardio, Saluggia, Italy). Thick stents (thick group) included the NIR (Medinol/Scimed Life Systems, Maple Grove, Minnesota), ACS Duet (Guidant Corp.), BX Velocity (Cordis, Johnson & Johnson Company), AVEII (Medtronic), Crossflex LC (Cordis, Johnson & Johnson Company) and Bard XT (CR Bard Inc., Billerica, Massachusetts).
Postprocedural management and follow-up. After successful stent implantation was achieved, no further heparin was administered, and the sheaths were removed in 4 to 6 h. Aspirin (325 mg/day) and ticlopidine (250 mg twice daily for 30 days) were prescribed to all patients. Follow-up was performed in all patients by means of an interview or telephone conversation with the patient or with the referring physician. Follow-up angiography was performed at six months, unless an early re-study was indicated by symptoms.
Angiographic measurements were performed, as previously described, with an automated computer-based system (QCA-CMS version 3.0, MEDIS, Leiden, The Netherlands) (12). The lesions were characterized according to the modified American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association classification (13). Angiographic success was defined as final angiographic residual stenosis of <20% by a visual estimate. Restenosis was defined in a dichotomous manner as diameter stenosis (DS)
50% at follow-up angiography. The analysis included assessment of the minimal lumen diameter (MLD) and percent DS immediately after stenting and at follow-up, as well as their cumulative distributions. According to a continuous geometric model of restenosis, we examined: 1) acute gain (MLD [after stenting] MLD [before procedure]); 2) relative gain (acute gain/reference diameter before stenting); 3) late loss (MLD [after stenting] MLD [at follow-up]); and 4) loss index (late loss/acute gain).
Intravascular ultrasound imaging was performed with a 3.9F monorail system equipped with a 25-MHz transducer-tipped catheter (Interpret Catheter, Inter-Therapy/CVIS) or a 2.9F or 3.2F monorail system equipped with a 30-MHz transducer-tipped catheter (Scimed-Boston Scientific, Maple Grove, Minnesota).
Statistical analysis.
Continuous variables are expressed as the mean value ± SD. Paired and unpaired t tests were performed to determine the differences between mean values for baseline continuous variables. The Fisher exact test was used to analyze categorical variables at baseline. The study group was classified into three subgroups (tertiles) according to the reference vessel diameter:
2.50 mm for the first group; 2.51 to 2.75 mm for the second group; and 2.76 to 2.99 mm for the third group. Angiographic data were analyzed by a mixed linear model with the interaction between group (thin and thick), vessel diameter tertiles and group-by-vessel diameter tertiles as a fixed effect and patient indicator as a random term to take into account clustered data (more lesions within the same patient). A comparison of angiographic measurements in the three subgroups was performed by using proper, mixed linear model contrasts and by adjusting the p value using the Tukey approach for multiple comparisons. The SAS Proc Mixed (Cary, North Carolina) was used to obtain maximal likelihood solutions of the mixed linear models. The influence of clinical, angiographic and procedural variables on restenosis was evaluated by univariate and stepwise logistic regression analyses. All variables with a p value <0.10 in the univariate analysis were entered into the multivariate model of restenosis to test for independent effects. The analysis was made per lesion. A p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Data were analyzed with SPSS version 10.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois) for Windows.
| Results |
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Clinical characteristics.. Patients in the thin group were more often diabetics and had a lower rate of multivessel disease (Table 1) .
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Long-term angiographic outcome. The restenosis rate was significantly lower in the thin group (28.5%) than in the thick group (36.6%; p = 0.009; odds ratio [OR] 1.44, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.09 to 1.90) (Fig. 1). This finding was also confirmed when deleting from the analysis the carbon-coated (Carbostent and Diamond) stents (27.6% vs. 34.7%; p = 0.016; OR 1.40, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.83). Of note, the loss index was significantly lower in the thin group (Table 2). The estimated mean relative surface area coverage of the vessel (11) was slightly higher in the thin group than in the thick group (18 ± 2% vs. 17 ± 2%; p < 0.001) but was not different according to restenosis occurrence (17 ± 3% in case of restenosis vs. 17 ± 3%; p = 0.86). Because of important differences in some clinical and angiographic characteristics that may potentially impact the restenosis rate, we identified the independent predictors of restenosis in our study group. Predictors of restenosis by univariate and multivariable analyses are summarized in Table 3. By stepwise logistic regression analysis, predictors of restenosis in the entire study group were stent length (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.04; p = 0.001), strut thickness (OR 1.68, 95% CI 1.23 to 2.29; p = 0.001) and diabetes mellitus (OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.21 to 3.68; p = 0.007).
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2.50 mm (300 lesions); 2) vessel diameter 2.51 to 2.75 mm (291 lesions); and 3) vessel diameter 2.76 to 2.99 mm (350 lesions) (Tables 4 and 5). Strut thickness influenced the restenosis rate only in the subgroup with a reference vessel diameter between 2.76 and 2.99 mm (23.5% in the thin group and 37% in the thick group; p = 0.006; OR 1.91, 95% CI 1.19 to 3.0) (Fig. 2). As represented in Figure 3, the loss index was similar in vessels with a reference diameter
2.50 mm, although it was lower in the thin group, as the reference vessel diameter increased, and it was statistically lower only in vessels with a reference diameter between 2.76 and 2.99 mm.
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| Discussion |
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Small artery size, as assessed by angiography, is an independent risk factor for the occurrence of restenosis and MACE at follow-up after stent implantation (13). The proposed mechanisms of such an unfavorable outcome are: 1) a high degree of vessel stretch and injury; 2) a small postprocedural lumen; and 3) a high metal density. Vascular injury and foreign body reaction are important mechanisms by which stent implantation can provoke neointimal hyperplasia (1416). Understanding the factors involved in vascular injury imposed during stent deployment might allow optimization of the stent design (e.g., stent/strut geometry and stent material) to reduce restenosis.
A number of stent configurations are now available. Differences have been reported in flexibility, tracking ability, expansion, radiovisibility, side-branch access and resistance to compression and recoil. Four different direct comparisons of first-generation Palmaz-Schatz slotted-tube stents and second-generation stents have been made ("stent vs. stent" equivalency trials). In three studies (1719), there were no significant differences in restenosis at follow-up, including MLD, percent DS, late loss and the binary restenosis rate. Randomized trials often include selected patients who are generally not representative of "real-life" stenting. Selected subsets may lead to equalization of outcomes and mask differences among the devices being tested (20).
Strut thickness and vessel damage. Kastrati et al. (9) recently demonstrated that the use of a device with a thinner strut is associated with a significant reduction in angiographic and clinical restenosis after coronary artery stenting in vessels >2.8 mm in reference diameter. The adjusted risk of restenosis associated with the thin-strutted stent was 0.42 (95% CI 0.26 to 0.68). One mechanism of stent-induced damage is strut-imposed vascular injury, which corresponds the extent of intimal thickening in experimental animals (14,2123). The struts of the expanding stent impose focal, deep vascular trauma in comparison to the less controlled stretching and fracturing of the vessel wall caused by balloon inflation alone (23). In addition to the deep injury associated with stent expansion, more superficial vascular injury occurs during stent expansion in areas removed from stent struts themselves. Furthermore, Rogers et al. (15) demonstrated that, using stents with a similar total surface area and strut thickness but a different geometric configuration, the stent design in which the struts created a more complex and closed area (corrugated-ring design) permitted 33% less injury in the spaces bounded by each strut, as compared with the stent design in which the inter-strut areas were more simple and open in shape (slotted-tube design).
Study limitations. This is a nonrandomized, retrospective study. Furthermore, the rate angiographic follow-up was low. However, it was similar in the two groups (56% in the thin group vs. 57% thick group; p = 0.80); therefore, any potential selection bias should be equally distributed in the two groups.
Conclusions. This study supports the concept that strut thickness is an independent predictor of angiographic restenosis in coronary arteries with a reference diameter of 2.76 to 2.99 mm. Even with the availability of drug-eluting stents, which seem to drastically reduce the restenosis rate, the result of the present study may contribute to a further reduction in the restenosis rate after stent implantation in small coronary arteries.
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