EVENT registry researchers examined drugelutingstent use over three time periods.

Over three time periods between 2004 and 2006, treatment with DES was associated with little change in mortality or MI and decreased rates of TLR, hemorrhage, in-hospital stent thrombosis, and late-stent thrombosis.

In addition, data from the EVENT registry indicated that clopidogrel use improved over the three time periods. Adequate treatment — defined as either clopidogrel treatment 1 week prior, 300 mg at least 6 hours prior, or 600 mg at least 2 hours prior to PCI — increased from 35% in wave 1 (July 2004 to March 2005) to 43% in wave 2 (June 2005 to September 2005) and to 46% in wave 3 (February 2006 to June 2006).

In-hospital ischemic complications, meanwhile, decreased over time. Need for urgent revascularization was observed in 0.9% of patients in wave 1, 0.7% of patients in wave 2, and 0.4% for wave 3. TLR also decreased, from 5.1% in wave 1 to 3.8% in wave 3 (P = .019). Death and MI remained generally stable from wave 1 to wave 3 (between 2% and 4% for death and between 8% and 9.5% for MI).

Bleeding complications also decreased over time (Figure 1).

 
Adjudicated stent thrombosis decreased over the three time waves, whether measurements were in-hospital, at 6 months, or 12 months (Figure 2).

The EVENT registry was designed to measure the implications of changing stent practice from 2004 to 2006.

Patients were enrolled in waves of approximately 2,500 patients per wave in which all patients receiving
any FDA-approved intracoronary stent were eligible.

During wave 3, 88.2% of patients were treated with a DES alone, whereas 2.7% were treated with both
a DES and a bare-metal stent.

The registry was presented by Neil Kleiman, MD, director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at
Methodist DeBakey Heart Center in Houston.