Are drug-eluting stents safe in the long term?
Philippe Généreux, MD and Roxana Mehran, MD Philippe Généreux and Roxana Mehran are with the Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA. The use of drug-eluting stents has become widespread globally. However, in the last 2 years concerns have been raised regarding their long-term safety.1,2 Recent registry studies and meta-analyses seem to have provided reassuring results about the long-term rates of death and myocardial infarction associated with the use of drug-eluting stents compared with bare-metal stents.3–5 However, concerns remain, especially regarding the risk of late (beyond 30 days) and very late (beyond 1 year) stent thrombosis. The cause, pathophysiology and timing of late and very late thrombosis are not fully understood. In this issue of CMAJ, Philpott and colleagues report the results of their 3-year study of data from a prospective multicentre registry.6 They compared rates of death and of the combined outcome of death or repeat revascularization among 6440 conse
