ABSTRACT
Across Europe, interventional cardiology is expanding, with particularly rapid growth in the number of procedures in Eastern European countries. In 2005, >1.3 million stents were implanted in Europe, of which drug-eluting stents (DESs) were used in approximately 45%. With the widespread introduction of the sirolimus-eluting stent (SES), the e-Cypher post-marketing surveillance registry was introduced to evaluate the clinical outcomes of patients treated in daily practice. The clinical outcomes of both the SESs and paclitaxel-eluting stents (PESs) for the treatment of chronic total occlusion (CTO) were further analyzed in the registry data from Rotterdam, whereby, from April 2002, all patients were treated with DESs. Both the SES and PES have shown safety and efficacy in improving outcomes in patients treated for a CTO. This improvement in outcomes relates to the development of significantly less restenosis, less re-occlusion and the need for significantly fewer repeat revascularizations.
