over the last decades the efficacy and safety of bare metal (BMS) and drug eluting stents (DES) have been demonstrated in many different clinical scenarios, leading to their use in more than 75% of the procedures worldwide. Compared to BMS, DES have shown lower rates of angiographic restenosis and target-vessel revascularization. This benefit was initially demonstrated in trials that excluded patients with more complex lesions, such as those with larger or smaller vessels, chronic total occlusions, bifurcation lesions, stent restenosis, long lesions and left main coronary artery disease. This real-world population has been recently evaluated in many registries and meta-analyses that are reviewed herein.
Drug-eluting stents; meta-analysis; registries
