Routine angiographic follow-up versus clinical follow-up in patients with diabetes following percutaneous coronary intervention with drug-eluting stents in Korean population

•Usefulness of routine angiographic follow-up (RAF) in diabetes is less well known.•RAF cause increased incidence of revascularization and major adverse cardiac events.•Target lesion revascularization also higher in second-generation drug-eluting stents. The usefulness of routine angiographic follow-up (RAF) and clinical follow-up (CF) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with diabetes is not well understood. We compare 3-year clinical outcomes of RAF and CF in diabetic patients underwent PCI with drug-eluting stents (DES). A total of 843 patients with diabetes who underwent PCI with DES were enrolled. RAF was performed at 6–9 months after PCI (n = 426). Rest of patients were medically managed and clinically followed (n = 417); symptom-driven events were captured. After propensity score matched analysis, 2 propensity-matched groups (262 pairs, n = 524, C-statistic = 0.750) were generated. The primary endpoint was major adverse cardiac events (MACE), the composite of total death, non-fatal myocardial infarction (MI), target lesion revascularization (TLR), target vessel revascularization (TVR), non-target vessel revascularization (Non-TVR). During the 3-year follow-up period, the cumulative incidence of target lesion revascularization [TLR: hazard ratio (HR), 4.07; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.18–9.34; p = 0.001], target vessel revascularization (TVR: HR, 4.02; 95% CI, 1.93–8.40; p