Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Strut Thickness on Outcomes in Patients With Drug-Eluting Stents in a Coronary Artery

The aim of this network meta-analysis is to assess the impact of strut thickness on clinical outcomes in patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention. We searched Medline/PubMed and performed a Bayesian network meta-analysis to compare outcomes of patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention with drug-eluting stents (DES) of different strut thicknesses (ultrathin 60 to 80 μm; thin 81 to 100 μm; intermediate 101 to 120 μm; thick ≥120 μm). Studies comparing DES with similar strut thickness, bare metal stents, and fully bioresorbable scaffolds were excluded. Odds ratios with credible intervals (OR [CrIs]) were generated with random-effects models to compare outcomes. Our primary end point was stent thrombosis (ST). We identified 69 RCTs including 80,885 patients (ultrathin group = 10,219; thin group = 36,575; intermediate group = 11,399; thick group = 22,692). Mean age was 64 ± 11 years and 75% were male gender. When compared with thick-strut DES, ultrathin struts had significant less ST and myocardial infarction (OR 0.43 [CrI 0.27 to 0.68]; and OR 0.73 [CrI 0.62 to 0.92], respectively). Sensitivity analysis including only studies with permanent polymer DES gave similar results. Improvement in DES technology with thinner struts is associated with significant reduction in ST and myocardial infarction compared with thicker struts.