Comparative efficacy of two paclitaxel-coated balloons with different excipient coatings in patients with coronary in-stent restenosis: A pooled analysis of the Intracoronary Stenting and Angiographic Results: Optimizing Treatment of Drug Eluting Stent In-Stent Restenosis 3 and 4 (ISAR-DESIRE 3 and ISAR-DESIRE 4) trials

Angioplasty with paclitaxel-coated balloons (PCB) is recommended for treatment of patients with coronary in-stent restenosis (ISR) according to European clinical practice guidelines. Most clinical trials have investigated iopromide-based PCB and there is a paucity of data comparing efficacy against butyryl-tri-hexyl citrate (BTHC)-based PCB. Our aim was to compare the performance of two widely-used PCB in the treatment of coronary ISR. We analysed patients treated with BTHC- or iopromide-PCB for treatment of drug-eluting stent ISR in the setting of 2 consecutive trials with identical inclusion and exclusion criteria. The primary endpoint was diameter stenosis at 6-8month angiographic surveillance. The secondary endpoint of interest was the composite of death, myocardial infarction (MI) or target-lesion revascularisation (TLR) at 1year. Multivariate analysis was performed to adjust for differences in baseline characteristics between groups. In total, 264 patients were treated with BTHC-PCB (n=127) or iopromide-PCB (n=137). Baseline patient characteristics were similar for both groups. Post-procedure stenosis was slightly larger with BTHC-PCB (22.3 [SD 8.2]% vs. 18.4 [SD 9.9]%, P=0.001). At 6-8month angiography, diameter stenosis was 40.4 [SD 21.9]% vs. 37.4 [SD 21.4]% in the BTHC-PCB and iopromide-PCB groups, respectively (P=0.16, P =0.32). At 1year, death, MI or TLR occurred in 29 (23.2%) vs. 32 (23.4%) patients in the BTHC-PCB and iopromide-PCB groups, respectively (HR 1.03 [95% CI 0.62-1.70], P=0.91, P =0.96). In patients undergoing intervention for ISR, angioplasty with BTHC-PCB showed similar angiographic and clinical results at 1year compared with iopromide-PCB.