TAXUS VI 2-year follow-up: randomized comparison of polymer-based paclitaxel-eluting with bare metal stents for treatment of long, complex lesions.

AIMS: Drug-eluting stents (DESs) have shown to be effective in reducing in-stent restenosis, although data relating to long-term experience in treating more complex lesion subsets are limited. In order to assess the long-term safety and clinical efficacy of the polymer-based moderate release (MR) paclitaxel-eluting TAXUS MR stent in treatment of complex lesion subsets, we evaluated the 2-year follow-up of TAXUS VI. METHOD AND RESULTS: TAXUS VI was a randomized multi-centre study enrolling 446 patients with complex lesions, including small vessels in 28% of patients and a mean lesion length of 20.6 mm. At 9-month follow-up, the use of the TAXUS MR stent was highly effective, resulting in a significant 53% reduction of the target vessel revascularization (TVR) rate (primary endpoint) from 19.4% in the control group to 9.1% in the TAXUS group (P = 0.0027). Clinical follow-up at 2 years post-stenting was available in 98.6% of the TAXUS group and 95.6% of the control group. The incidence of major adverse cardiac event at 1- and 2-year follow-up was 16.4% and 21.3% in the TAXUS group when compared with 22.5 and 25.1% in the control group, respectively. A significant difference in TVR was maintained at 2-year follow-up (TAXUS 13.9%; control 21.9%; P = 0.0335). The cumulative 1- and 2-year survival rates free from TVR were, respectively, 91.7 and 90.3% in the TAXUS group vs. 80.0 and 79.0% in the control group (log-rank P < 0.001). The number of patients required to be treated with a TAXUS stent to prevent one re-percutaneous coronary intervention at 2 years was 12.5. CONCLUSION: Treatment of complex coronary lesions with the polymer-based MR paclitaxel-eluting TAXUS MR stent is associated with a sustained clinical benefit and low rates of TVR up to 2 years after device implantation.