Are "treatment" bare metal stents superior to "control" bare metal stents? A meta-analytic approach.

ABSTRACT:

Background

It has been suggested that the benefits of drug-eluting stents compared to bare metal stents (BMS) have been overestimated in part because target lesion/vessel revascularization (TLR/TVR) rates in the BMS control group of these trials were spuriously high.

Methods

We used meta-analytic techniques to systematically compare clinical event rates among patients treated with BMS in trials where BMS were the experimental (BMS(experimental)) rather than the control (BMS(control)) intervention. MEDLINE searches were performed to identify eligible randomized trials comparing either drug-eluting stents with BMS(control) or BMS(experimental) with balloon angioplasty in patients with nonacute coronary artery disease. Trial characteristics and 6- to 12-month rates for death, m

SUBMITTER: Kent DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3065934 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature