ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: We designed a porcine model to compare the angiographic, optical coherence tomography (OCT) and histological findings of implanting an everolimus-eluting stent (EES) in the same segment of the coronary artery pre-treated with a drug-coating balloon (DCB; paccocath as carrier) with EES alone and DCB plus a bare metal stent (BMS). METHODS: Seven female swine averaging 46.0±2.4kg were treated by random assignment as follows: DCB followed by EES; DCB followed by BMS; and EES alone. Quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) and OCT were carried out post-implantation and repeated after 28±1days. RESULTS: All arteries remained patent and demonstrated no sign of thrombus formation. There was no significant difference at 1month between the treatment groups in lumen loss (0.64±0.43, 0.44±0.43 and 0.33±0.28mm for EES, DCB/EES and DCB/BMS respectively, p=0.37) and binary restenosis (6.86 (2.91-9.12), 4.93 (-1.53-10.7) and 4.18 (3.27-10.2)% respectively, p=0.87). OCT found mean neointimal thickness of 0.15±0.09, 0.07±0.03 and 0.08±0.03mm (p=0.05) for EES, DCB/EES and DCB/BMS respectively. Endothelial strut coverage was 92.3±5.5, 85.4±8.6 and 89.1±8.9% (p=0.05) and mean neointimal area was 1.06±0.42, 0.95±0.24 and 1.20±0.28mm2 (p=0.09) respectively. Inflammation score was similar between the three groups: 0.20 (0.20-0.28), 0.30 (0.22-0.48), 0.30 (0.20-0.38) for EES, DCB/EES and DCB/BMS respectively (p=0.14) and there were no differences in fibrin deposition. CONCLUSIONS: The combination of DCB with EES appeared to be safe and effective. Using EES to bail out suboptimal DCB therapy appeared to be safe and effective in this porcine model.
