Several types of biodegradable polymer drug-eluting stents (BPDES) have been used for percutaneous transluminal angioplasty; however, the safety and efficiency of these BPDES have not been fully evaluated. A meta-analysis was, therefore, conducted to compare the clinical performance of BPDES with that of permanent polymer drug-eluting stents (PPDES) in unselected patients with coronary stenosis. PubMed, Web of Science, Medline and The Cochrane Library were searched for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) from January 2005 to January 2014. Trials that compared BPDES with PPDES in patients with coronary stenosis were considered. Twelve RCTs with a total of 15,938 patients with coronary stenosis were included in this meta-analysis. No significant difference was found between the two arms in the incidence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) and definite or probable stent thrombosis (DpST) at the one-year follow-up (P>0.10). The use of BPDES, however, showed a tendency towards a lower risk of MACE (P=0.09) and a beneficial effect by reducing DpST episodes (P=0.04) at long-term follow-up, particularly when compared with the incidence of DpST at the one-year follow-up. BPDES also tended to be associated with a decreased late lumen loss in patients with coronary stenosis [instrumental variable =-0.04; 95% confidence interval =-0.08-0.00; P=0.05). In conclusion, the one-year outcomes following drug-eluting stent implantation showed BPDES were noninferior to PPDES in unselected patients with coronary stenosis. Long-term clinical outcomes, however, indicated that BPDES appeared to a present a lower risk of MACE and DpST.
Keywords: biodegradable polymer; drug-eluting stent; endovascular therapy; meta-analysis; outcome analysis; percutaneous transluminal angioplasty; permanent polymer.