Comparison of the Efficacy of Everolimus-Eluting Stents Versus Drug-Eluting Balloons in Patients With In-Stent Restenosis (from the RIBS IV and V Randomized Clinical Trials)

Treatment of patients with in-stent restenosis (ISR) remains a challenge. This study sought to compare the efficacy of everolimus-eluting stents (EESs) and drug-eluting balloons (DEBs) with paclitaxel in patients with ISR. A pooled analysis of the Restenosis Intra-Stent of Drug-Eluting Stents: Drug-Eluting Balloon vs Everolimus-Eluting Stent (RIBS IV) and Restenosis Intra-Stent of Bare-Metal Stents: Drug-Eluting Balloon vs Everolimus-Eluting Stent (RIBS V) randomized trials was performed using patient-level data. In both trials, EESs were compared with DEBs in patients with ISR (RIBS V included 189 patients with bare-metal ISR; RIBS IV included 309 patients with drug-eluting ISR). Inclusion and exclusion criteria were identical in both trials. A total of 249 patients were allocated to EES and 249 to DEB. Clinical follow-up at 1 year was obtained in all (100%) patients and late angiography (median 249 days) in 91% of eligible patients. Compared with patients treated with DEBs, patients treated with EESs obtained better short-term results (postprocedural minimal lumen diameter 2.28 ± 0.5 vs 2.12 ± 0.4 mm, p <0.0001). At follow-up, patients treated with EESs had larger in-segment minimal lumen diameter (primary end point 2.16 ± 0.7 vs 1.88 ± 0.6 mm, p <0.0001; absolute mean difference 0.28 mm; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.16 to 0.40) and net lumen gain (1.33 ± 0.6 vs 1.00 ± 0.7 mm, p <0.0001) and had lower %diameter stenosis (19 ± 21% vs 28 ± 22%, p <0.0001) and binary restenosis rate (8.7% vs 15.7%, p = 0.02). Consistent results were observed in the in-lesion analysis. No interactions were found between the underlying stent type and treatment effects. At 1-year clinical follow-up, the composite of cardiac death, myocardial infarction, and target vessel revascularization was significantly reduced in the EES arm (8.8% vs 14.5%, p = 0.03; hazard ratio 0.59, 95% CI 0.31 to 0.94) mainly driven by a lower need for target vessel revascularization (6% vs 12.4%, p = 0.01, hazard ratio 0.46, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.86). This pooled analysis of the RIBS IV and RIBS V randomized trials demonstrates the superiority of EES over DEB in the treatment of patients with ISR.