Safety and efficacy of everolimus-eluting bioresorbable vascular scaffolds versus durable polymer everolimus-eluting metallic stents assessed at 1-year follow-up: A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies

Background: The Absorb bioresorbable vascular scaffold (BVS) was developed to address long-term safety issues of metallic drug-eluting stents. However, it may be associated with an increased event risk during the first year.

Methods: A systematic literature search was performed (in MEDLINE/PubMed, Cochrane CENTRAL, EMBASE, and scientific meeting abstracts) to identify studies that compared BVS and cobalt-chromium durable polymer everolimus-eluting stents (EES). For randomized clinical trials and non-randomized propensity score matched studies that reported 1-year outcome data, fixed/random-effects models were used to generate pooled estimates of outcomes, presented as odds ratios (OR) with 95%-confidence intervals (CI).

Results: The 1-year follow-up data of 6 trials with 5588 patients were analyzed. A device-oriented composite endpoint (DOCE – cardiac death, target vessel myocardial infarction (MI), or target lesion revascularization (TLR)) was reached by 308 BVS or EES patients (195/3253 vs. 113/2315). Meta-analysis showed that patients who received BVS had an increased risk of MI (4.3% vs. 2.3%; OR:1.63, 95%-CI: 1.18–2.25, p < 0.01) and definite-or-probable scaffold thrombosis (1.3% vs. 0.6%; OR:2.10, 95%-CI: 1.13–3.87, p = 0.02). However, there was no significant between-group difference in risk of DOCE (6.0% vs. 4.9%; OR:1.19, 95%-CI: 0.94–1.52, p = 0.16), cardiac death (0.8% vs. 0.7%; OR:1.14, 95%-CI: 0.54–2.39, p = 0.73), or TLR (2.5% vs. 2.5%; OR: 0.98, 95%-CI:0.69–1.40, p = 0.92).

Conclusions: During the first year of follow-up, patients treated with BVS had a higher incidence of MI and scaffold thrombosis. The risk of DOCE was not significantly different. As BVS may pay off later, future robust data on long-term clinical outcome will be of paramount importance.