The clinical impact of routine angiographic follow-up in randomized trials of drug-eluting stents: a critical assessment of "oculostenotic" reintervention in patients with intermediate lesions

The aim of this study was to study the long-term clinical effects of routine angiographic follow-up and related reintervention after drug-eluting stenting. Prior stent trials have shown that protocol-mandated angiographic follow-up increases repeat interventions compared with clinical follow-up alone. The long-term clinical impact of this practice is unknown. Long-term outcomes of patients assigned to routine angiographic follow-up in 3 large-scale TAXUS (Boston Scientific, Natick, Massachusetts) trials were compared with patients assigned to clinical follow-up alone, in a propensity score-adjusted patient-level meta-analysis. Outcomes were also compared in patients with treated versus untreated nonischemic intermediate lesions (quantitative angiographic stenosis between >or=40% and