Three-year clinical outcome after treatment of chronic total occlusions with second-generation drug-eluting stents in the TWENTE trial

Objective To compare long-term outcome of patients treated for chronic total occlusion (CTO) lesions versus patients treated for non-CTO lesions only. Background Percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) for CTO lesions generally have a higher adverse event risk than PCI for non-CTO lesions. However, long-term outcome data from prospective studies with second-generation drug-eluting stent (DES) use in CTO lesions is scarce. Methods We analyzed in this substudy of the TWENTE trial the data of 674 patients, who had stable angina and were electively treated with second-generation DES (Resolute zotarolimus-eluting or Xience V everolimus-eluting stents). Main outcome parameter was target lesion failure (TLF), a composite of cardiac death, target vessel-related myocardial infarction (MI), or target lesion revascularization (TLR). Results Patients with CTO lesions (n = 59, 8.8%) were more often treated for lesions in small vessels (94.9% vs. 63.1%, P < 0.001), long lesions (52.5% vs. 17.7%, P < 0.001) and multiple vessels (42.4% vs. 22.4%, P < 0.001), and were less often males (62.7% vs. 74.6%, P < 0.05) than patients with non-CTO lesions (n = 615, 91.2%). J-CTO scores ≥2 were present in 56% of CTO lesions. Despite significant differences in characteristics of patients, lesions, and interventional procedures, the TLF rate at 3-year follow-up was similar for both groups (13.6% vs. 12.9%, P = 0.89). In addition, a patient-oriented composite endpoint (any death, MI or revascularization) did not differ between groups (18.6% vs. 18.8%, P = 0.97). Conclusion Patients treated with second-generation DES for CTO lesions showed at 3-year follow-up an incidence of adverse clinical events that was low and similar to patients with non-CTO lesions only