Paclitaxel-Eluting versus Everolimus-Eluting Coronary Stents in Diabetes

The Potential Effects of New Stent Platforms for Coronary Revascularization in Patients With Diabetes

Coronary artery disease in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) is characterized by extensive atherosclerosis, longer lesions, and diffuse distal disease. Consequently, these patients have worse outcomes after coronary revascularization, regardless of the modality used. Traditionally, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) has been regarded as more effective than percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with DM, likely because of more complete revascularization and protection against disease progression in the bypass segment. Revascularization with balloon angioplasty, bare-metal stents, and first-generation drug-eluting stents have all been shown to be inferior to CABG in patients with DM. Current professional society guidelines reflect these findings, strongly recommending CABG over PCI in this setting. Newer stent platforms, however, have challenged this notion. The use of thinner struts, biocompatible polymer coating, and newer antiproliferative agents have improved the rates of cardiovascular events in patients with DM revascularized percutaneously. Since the publication of current guidelines, new studies suggested acceptable outcomes in patients with DM revascularized with second-generation drug-eluting stents, even though these conclusions are drawn from small subgroup analyses or nonrandomized studies. Robust registry data suggest similar mortality with lower rates of stroke after PCI compared with surgery, at the expense of increased rates of repeat revascularization. If complete revascularization can be achieved, similar rates of myocardial infarction are also observed. Therefore, contemporary revascularization in patients with DM with multivessel coronary artery disease should involve a multidisciplinary approach, in which interventional cardiologists and cardiac surgeons involve their patients to individualize treatment choices, and balance the risks and effectiveness of each modality.

Crystalline paclitaxel coated DES with bioactive protective layer development

Drug eluting stents (DES) based on polymeric-carriers currently lead the market, however, reports on clinical complications encourage the development of safer and more effective DES. We recently reported on carrier-free DES based on rapamycin crystalline coating as a potential therapeutic solution. Here, we report for the first time surface crystallization of paclitaxel (PT) onto metallic stents. The physicochemical principles of crystallization and key process parameters were extensively studied for fabrication of controllable and homogeneous crystalline coatings on stent scaffolds. Stents loaded with nearly 100μg PT were chosen as a potential therapeutic device with a multilayer coating of 4-7μm thickness. In vitro PT release from these coated stents shows constant release for at least 28days with 10% cumulatively released. The effect of fast dissolving top coating on the physical stability of the coated stent was determined. The top coating enhances the mechanical stability of the crystalline coating during deployment and expansion simulations. Also, incorporating PT in the protective top coating for developing bioactive top coating for multilayer controlled release purpose was intensively studied. This process has wide applications that can be further implemented for other drugs for effective local drug delivery from implantable medical devices.

Empirical Consequences of Current Recommendations for the Design and Interpretation of Noninferiority Trials

BACKGROUND

Noninferiority trials are increasingly common, though they have less standardized designs and their interpretation is less familiar to clinicians than superiority trials.

OBJECTIVE

To empirically evaluate a cohort of noninferiority trials to determine 1) their interpretation as recommended by CONSORT, 2) choice of alpha threshold and its sidedness, and 3) differences between methods of analysis such as intention-to-treat and per-protocol.

DESIGN

We searched MEDLINE for parallel-group randomized controlled noninferiority trials published in the five highest-impact general medical journals between 2011 and 2016.

MAIN MEASURES

Data abstracted included trial design parameters, results, and interpretation of results based on CONSORT recommendations.

KEY RESULTS

One hundred sixty-three trials and 182 noninferiority comparisons were included in our analysis. Based on CONSORT-recommended interpretation, 79% of experimental therapies met criteria for noninferiority, 13% met criteria for superiority, 20% were declared inconclusive, and 2% met criteria for inferiority. However, for 12% of trials, the experimental therapy was statistically significantly worse than the active control, but CONSORT recommended an interpretation of inconclusive or noninferior. A two-sided alpha equivalent of greater than 0.05 was used in 34% of the trials, and in five of these trials, the use of a standard two-sided alpha of 0.05 led to changes in the interpretation of results that disfavored the experimental therapy. In four of the five comparisons where different methods of analysis (e.g., intention-to-treat and per-protocol) yielded different results, the intention-to-treat analysis was the more conservative. In 11% of trials, a secondary advantage of the new therapy was neither reported nor could it be inferred by reviewers.

CONCLUSIONS

In this cohort, the design and interpretation of noninferiority trials led to significant and systematic bias in favor of the experimental therapy. Clinicians should exercise caution when interpreting these trials. Future trials may be more reliable if design parameters are standardized.

Coronary Stents in Diabetic Patients: State of the Knowledge

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

This review article aims to summarize the findings of the most relevant research that compared the use of paclitaxel vs. "limus" based drug eluting stent (DES) in diabetic patients and to define the current state of knowledge with new stent technologies in this patient population.

RECENT FINDINGS

Since drug eluting stents (DES) were introduced, it has been of great interest to establish whether paclitaxel or sirolimus eluting stents have the same safety and efficacy features for patients with coronary artery disease. The answer to this question is particularly relevant for diabetic patients. Several randomized trials, registry-based studies, and meta-analyses have assessed the performance of these different DES in diabetic patients. The most recently published data favors limus over paclitaxel DES in diabetic patients, but most of these studies compared first vs. second generation DES with the inherent caveats of comparing different platforms, alloys, and drug delivery vehicles. In this literature review, we found that there is robust evidence favoring the use of DES over bare metal stents in diabetic patients with coronary artery disease. We also found that the current state of knowledge is that the everolimus eluting stents have better safety and efficacy than paclitaxel eluting stents in diabetic patients and hence should be the preferred choice. New revascularization strategies including bio-absorbable scaffolds, polymer free stents, and bio-degradable polymers are being studied in diabetic patients with encouraging results.

Extracting information from free-text electronic patient records to identify practice-based evidence of the performance of coronary stents

Background and objective

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) using drug-eluting stents (DES) is an indispensable treatment for coronary artery disease. However, to evaluate the performance of various types of stents for PCI, numerous resources are required. We extracted clinical information from free-text records and, using practice-based evidence, compared the efficacy of various DES.

Materials and methods

We developed a text mining tool based on regular expression and applied it to PCI reports stored in the electronic health records (EHRs) of Ajou University Hospital from 2010–2014. The PCI data were extracted from EHRs with a sensitivity of 0.996, a specificity of 1.000, and an F-measure of 0.995 when compared with a sample of 200 reports. Using these data, we compared the performance of stents by Kaplan-Meier analysis and the Cox hazard proportional regression.

Results

In the self-validation analysis comparing the first-generation to the second-generation DES, the second-generation DES was superior to the first-generation DES (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.423, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.284–0.630) in terms of target vessel revascularization (TVR), showing similar findings to the established results of previous studies. Among the second-generation DES, the biodegradable-polymer DES tended to be superior, with a risk of TVR (HR: 0.568, 95% CI: 0.281–1.147) falling below than that for the durable-polymer DES approximately 1 year after the index procedure. The Endeavor stent had the highest TVR risk among the newer generation DES (HR: 2.576, 95% CI: 1.273–5.210).

Conclusions

In this study, we demonstrated how to construct a PCI data warehouse of PCI-related parameters obtained from free-text electronic records with high accuracy for use in the post surveillance of coronary stents in a time- and cost effective manner. Post surveillance of the practice based evidence in the PCI data warehouse indicated that the biodegradable-polymer DES might have a lower risk of TVR than the durable-polymer DES.

Contemporary Drug-Eluting Stent Platforms: Design, Safety, and Clinical Efficacy

First-generation drug-eluting stents significantly improved treatment of coronary disease, decreasing rates of revascularization. This was offset by high rates of late adverse events, driven primarily by stent thrombosis. Research and design improvements of individual DES platform components led to next-generation devices with superior clinical safety and efficacy profiles compared with bare-metal stents and first-generation drug-eluting stents. These design improvements and features are explored, and their resulting clinical safety and efficacy reviewed, focusing on platforms approved by the Food and Drug Administration currently widely used in the United States.

Contemporary Drug-Eluting Stent Platforms: Design, Safety, and Clinical Efficacy

First-generation drug-eluting stents significantly improved treatment of coronary disease, decreasing rates of revascularization. This was offset by high rates of late adverse events, driven primarily by stent thrombosis. Research and design improvements of individual DES platform components led to next-generation devices with superior clinical safety and efficacy profiles compared with bare-metal stents and first-generation drug-eluting stents. These design improvements and features are explored, and their resulting clinical safety and efficacy reviewed, focusing on platforms approved by the Food and Drug Administration currently widely used in the United States.

Association of Serum HMGB2 Levels With In-Stent Restenosis

Objective—

In a previous study, we established diabetic and nondiabetic minipig models with coronary artery in-stent restenosis (ISR). Mass spectrometry showed that high-mobility group box (HMGB) 2 level was higher in ISR than in non-ISR tissue from diabetic minipigs. We here investigated whether serum HMGB2 levels were related to ISR in coronary artery disease patients. The effect of HMGB2 was evaluated in mice with femoral artery wire injury and in human aortic smooth muscle cells.

Approach and Results—

From 2513 patients undergoing coronary artery intervention and follow-up angiography at ≈1 year, 262 patients were diagnosed with ISR, and 298 patients with no ISR were randomly included as controls. Serum HMGB2 levels were significantly higher in patients with ISR than in those without ISR and were associated with ISR severity. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that HMGB2 level was independently associated with ISR. In experiments, HMGB2 expression was increased in vascular tissue after injury. Perivascular HMGB2 administration promoted injury-induced neointimal hyperplasia in C57Bl/6 mice compared with in the control, whereas such pathophysiological features were attenuated in Hmgb2 –/– mice. Mechanistically, HMGB2 enhanced neointimal hyperplasia in mice and proliferation and migration in human aortic smooth muscle cells by inducing reactive oxygen species through increased p47phox phosphorylation. Knocking down p47phox, however, inhibited HMGB2-induced effects in human aortic smooth muscle cells. Finally, HMGB2-induced effects were significantly declined in receptor of advanced glycation end products knockdown or deficient cells, but not in Toll-like receptor 4 knockdown or deficient cells.

Conclusions—

Serum HMGB2 levels were associated with ISR in patients. HMGB2 promoted neointimal hyperplasia in mice with arterial wire injury through reactive oxygen species activation.

Identification of berberine as a direct thrombin inhibitor from traditional Chinese medicine through structural, functional and binding studies

Thrombin acts as a key enzyme in the blood coagulation cascade and represents a potential drug target for the treatment of several cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study was to identify small-molecule direct thrombin inhibitors from herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A pharmacophore model and molecular docking were utilized to virtually screen a library of chemicals contained in compositions of traditional Chinese herbs, and these analyses were followed by in vitro bioassay validation and binding studies. Berberine (BBR) was first confirmed as a thrombin inhibitor using an enzymatic assay. The BBR IC₅₀ value for thrombin inhibition was 2.92 μM. Direct binding studies using surface plasmon resonance demonstrated that BBR directly interacted with thrombin with a K_D value of 16.39 μM. Competitive binding assay indicated that BBR could bind to the same argartroban/thrombin interaction site. A platelet aggregation assay demonstrated that BBR had the ability to inhibit thrombin-induced platelet aggregation in washed platelets samples. This study proved that BBR is a direct thrombin inhibitor that has activity in inhibiting thrombin-induced platelet aggregation. BBR may be a potential candidate for the development of safe and effective thrombin-inhibiting drugs.

Long-term comparative effectiveness of paclitaxel-eluting and everolimus-eluting stents in New York

OBJECTIVE

First generation paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES) and second generation everolimus-eluting stents (EES) were approved for use in percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) in 2004 and 2008, respectively. However, relative long-term outcomes of PES vs EES in real practice remain unclear. We sought to determine the long-term comparative effectiveness of PES vs EES using New York State (NYS) cardiac registries and to assess long-term outcomes of PES vs ZES in six "off-label" and two "high-risk" patient subgroups.

METHODS

A longitudinal database was built by linking the NYS cardiac registries, the statewide hospital discharge data, the National Death Index, and the 2010 U.S. Census file for patients undergoing either PES or EES implantation from July 2008 through December 2009. All-cause mortality, acute myocardial infarction (AMI), target lesion PCI (TLPCI), and target vessel coronary artery bypass graft (TVCABG) surgery were assessed for 9760 propensity score matched patients in the 5-year follow-up period by using the Kaplan-Meier method with further adjustment using Cox proportional hazards regression.

RESULTS

We found that compared with patients receiving PES, patients receiving EES had a significantly lower rate of 5-year TLPCI (adjusted hazard ratio <AHR>: 0.75, 95% confidence interval <CI>: 0.65-0.86), TVCABG (AHR: 0.69, 95% CI: 0.53-0.90) and a similar rate of all-cause mortality (AHR: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.87-1.10) and AMI (AHR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.83-1.13). We observed similar findings in only two out of eight subgroups.

CONCLUSIONS

At 5years, EES was associated with lower TLPCI and TVCABG rates and comparable mortality and AMI rates relative to PES.

Myocardial revascularization in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: An overview of modern techniques

For patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), in combination with diabetes mellitus, diffuse multivessel coronary artery lesions are common. Such patients are prone to a more rapid progression of atherosclerosis, significantly increasing the need for myocardial revascularization. The choice of an optimal approach determines the prognosis and course of CAD. The results of randomized trials show that the use of percutaneous coronary interventions with drug-eluting stents is appropriate for patients with one or two coronary artery lesions, but that coronary artery bypass graft surgery is preferred in cases of multivessel disease and significantly reduces the risk of long-term adverse events. It should also be noted that the use of modern generations of stents allows the achievement of comparable results in terms of long-term mortality, which was most convincingly demonstrated in patients with one or two vascular lesions.

Diagnosis and management of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in chronic kidney disease: a review

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have a high prevalence of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, likely reflecting the presence of traditional risk factors. A greater distinguishing feature of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in CKD is the severity of the disease, which is reflective of an increase in inflammatory mediators and vascular calcification secondary to hyperparathyroidism of renal origin that are unique to patients with CKD. Additional components of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease that are prominent in patients with CKD include microvascular disease and myocardial fibrosis. Therapeutic interventions that minimize cardiovascular events related to atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in patients with CKD, as determined by well-designed clinical trials, are limited to statins. Data are lacking regarding other available therapeutic measures primarily due to exclusion of patients with CKD from major trials studying cardiovascular disease. Data from well-designed randomized controlled trials are needed to guide clinicians who care for this high-risk population in the management of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease to improve clinical outcomes.

Efficacy and safety of everolimus and zotarolimus-eluting stents versus first-generation drug-eluting stents in patients with diabetes: A meta-analysis of randomized trials

INTRODUCTION

Patients with diabetes and coronary artery disease remain at high risk for adverse cardiovascular events after percutaneous coronary intervention. The efficacy and safety of the various drug-eluting stents (DES) in patients with diabetes is unclear.

METHODS

Randomized controlled trials comparing first-generation DES [paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES) and sirolimus-eluting stents (SES)] with everolimus-eluting stents (EES) and zotarolimus-eluting stents (ZES) in diabetic patients were systematically searched. Efficacy [target vessel revascularization (TVR) and target lesion revascularization (TLR)] and safety [major adverse cardiac events (MACE), all-cause and cardiac mortality, myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis] outcomes were evaluated.

RESULTS

Eighteen randomized controlled trials comprising of 8095 patients (17,000 patient-years of follow-up) were included. Compared to first-generation DES, EES significantly decreased MACE by 18% (relative risk [RR]: 0.82, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.70-0.96), myocardial infarction by 43% (RR: 0.57, 95% CI: 0.39-0.84) and stent thrombosis by 46% (RR: 0.54, 95% CI: 0.35-0.82) in patients with diabetes. Moreover EES showed a trend towards reduction in rates of TLR and TVR (p=0.05). ZES was associated with 89% increased risk for TLR (RR: 1.89, 95% CI: 1.10-3.22) compared to first-generation DES. Furthermore, meta-regression analysis showed a greater magnitude of benefit of EES over first-generation DES for MACE (p=0.037) and stent thrombosis (p=0.036) in diabetic patients requiring Insulin.

CONCLUSIONS

In patients with diabetes and coronary artery disease undergoing stenting, EES is the most efficacious and safe DES. The outcomes data for ZES in diabetes patients were limited and further trials are needed.

Myocardial revascularization in patients with coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes

The review discusses myocardial revascularization in patients with coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The data presented include findings from recent research and international and national recommendations and provides evidence on the advantages of coronary artery bypass surgery over percutaneous coronary intervention for patients with diabetes mellitus, stable coronary artery disease and multiple coronary artery lesions. Type 2 diabetes remains a significant predictor of adverse long-term outcomes of coronary artery bypass surgery. Therefore, we review studies showing that different strategies of coronary revascularization and preoperative preparation can affect the results of coronary intervention in patients with diabetes.

First-generation paclitaxel- vs. second-generation zotarolimus-eluting stents in small coronary arteries: the BASKET-SMALL Pilot Study

Introduction

Event rates after percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) are higher in small than large coronary vessels but may vary between different drug-eluting stent (DES) types.

Aim

To assess the efficacy of two different DES in small vessel disease.

Material and methods

Patients with small vessel PCI were randomised 1 : 1 to a first-generation paclitaxel- vs. a second-generation zotarolimus-eluting stent. The primary endpoint was a composite of cardiac death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, and target vessel revascularisation after 2 years.

Results

Overall, 191 patients were enrolled: 100 with a paclitaxel- and 91 with a zotarolimus-eluting stent. Baseline characteristics were similar in both groups. After 2 years, rates of the primary endpoint were numerically higher for zotarolimus- than paclitaxel-eluting stents (9.9% vs. 5.0%, hazard ratio 2.09, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.7–6.2, p = 0.19), which was mainly driven by higher rates of target vessel revascularisation (6.6% vs. 2.0%, hazard ratio 3.39, 95% CI: 0.68–16.78, p = 0.14). Based on this, a total of 1,019 patients would be necessary to demonstrate at least non-inferiority between the DES used.

Conclusions

In this pilot study, paclitaxel-eluting stents had a favourable efficacy profile in small vessel disease, although the numbers were too small to draw final conclusions. Based on the prohibitively high sample size for a randomized controlled trial between DES, other treatment options should be considered.

One year clinical outcomes in patients with insulin-treated diabetes mellitus and non-insulin-treated diabetes mellitus compared to non-diabetics after deployment of the bio-engineered COMBO stent

BACKGROUND

The COMBO stent is a novel sirolimus-eluting stent with a luminal anti-CD34+ antibody layer to promote vessel healing. No data is currently available on clinical outcomes after treatment with this novel bio-engineered device in diabetic patients. We evaluate clinical outcomes at twelve months after COMBO stent placement in patients without diabetes mellitus (non-DM), patients with non-insulin-treated diabetes mellitus (nITDM) and patients with insulin-treated diabetes mellitus (ITDM).

METHODS

This study is a pre-specified subgroup analysis of the 1000 patient all-comers REMEDEE Registry. The primary endpoint is target lesion failure (TLF), which is a combined endpoint consisting of cardiac death, target vessel-myocardial infarction (tv-MI) and target lesion revascularization (TLR) at twelve months follow-up. Kaplan Meier method is used with log rank to compare outcomes between groups.

RESULTS

This subgroup analysis includes 807 non-DM, 117 nITDM and 67 ITDM. Kaplan-Meier estimates for TLF at twelve months are 4.4% in non-DM, 6.8% in nITDM and 20.3% in ITDM, p<0.001 (non-DM vs nITDM p=0.244, non-DM vs ITDM p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

This study gives the first insight into the impact of insulin-treated diabetes mellitus on clinical outcome of patients treated with the novel COMBO stent. At one year after COMBO stent placement significantly higher rates of target lesion failure are seen in patients with ITDM compared to patients with nITDM and patients without DM.

Antiproliferative Drugs for Restenosis Prevention

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Current treatment strategies aimed at treating the symptoms and consequences of obstructive vascular disease have embraced both optimal medical therapy and catheter-based percutaneous coronary intervention with drug-eluting stents. Drug-eluting stents elute antiproliferative drugs inhibiting vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation, which occurs in response to injury and thus prevents restenosis. However, all drugs currently approved for use in drug-eluting stents do not discriminate between proliferating vascular smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells, thus delaying re-endothelialization and subsequent vascular healing.

Revascularization in Patients With Multivessel Coronary Artery Disease and Severe Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction: Everolimus-Eluting Stents Versus Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery

BACKGROUND

Guidelines recommend coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) over percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for multivessel disease and severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction. However, CABG has not been compared with PCI in such patients in randomized trials.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Patients with multivessel disease and severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction (ejection fraction ≤35%) who underwent either PCI with everolimus-eluting stent or CABG were selected from the New York State registries. The primary outcome was long-term all-cause death. Secondary outcomes were individual outcomes of myocardial infarction, stroke, and repeat revascularization. Among the 4616 patients who fulfilled our inclusion criteria (1351 everolimus-eluting stent and 3265 CABG), propensity score matching identified 2126 patients with similar propensity scores. In the short term, PCI was associated with a lower risk of stroke (hazard ratio [HR], 0.05; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.01-0.39; P=0.004) in comparison with CABG. At long-term follow-up (median, 2.9 years), PCI was associated with a similar risk of death (HR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.81-1.28; P=0.91), a higher risk of myocardial infarction (HR, 2.16; 95% CI, 1.42-3.28; P=0.0003), a lower risk of stroke (HR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.33-0.97; P=0.04), and a higher risk of repeat revascularization (HR, 2.54; 95% CI, 1.88-3.44; P<0.0001). The test for interaction was significant (P=0.002) for completeness of revascularization, such that, in patients in whom complete revascularization was achieved with PCI, there was no difference in myocardial infarction between PCI and CABG.

CONCLUSIONS

Among patients with multivessel disease and severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction, PCI with everolimus-eluting stent had comparable long-term survival in comparison with CABG. PCI was associated with higher risk of myocardial infarction (in those with incomplete revascularization) and repeat revascularization, and CABG was associated with higher risk of stroke.

Determining the Most Appropriate Mode of Coronary Artery Revascularisation in Patients With Diabetes

Obstructive coronary artery disease is a common cause of morbidity and mortality among patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). Previous research has demonstrated that the clinical sequelae of coronary artery disease remains the most common cause of death in this population. As a result numerous observational studies and randomised clinical trials have evaluated the timing and mode of coronary artery revascularisation within this population. In this review, we survey the currently available data informing the indications and optimal method of coronary revascularisation for diabetic patients.

Are Everolimus-Eluting Stents Associated With Better Clinical Outcomes Compared to Other Drug-Eluting Stents in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus?: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Controversies still exist with the use of Everolimus-Eluting Stents (EES) compared to other Drug-Eluting Stents (DES) in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Therefore, in order to solve this issue, we aim to compare the 1-year adverse clinical outcomes between EES and non-EE DES with a larger number of patients with T2DM.Medline, EMBASE, PubMed databases, as well as the Cochrane library were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies (OS) comparing EES and non-EE DES in patients with T2DM. One-year adverse outcomes were considered as the clinical endpoints in this study. Odd ratios (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to express the pooled effect on discontinuous variables and the pooled analyses were performed with RevMan 5.3.Ten studies consisting of a total of 11,981 patients with T2DM (6800 patients in the EES group and 5181 in the non-EE DES group) were included in this meta-analysis. EES were associated with a significantly lower major adverse cardiac events (MACEs) with OR: 0.83, 95% CI: 0.70-0.98, P = 0.03. Revascularization including target vessel revascularization (TVR) and target lesion revascularization (TLR) were also significantly lower in the EES group with OR: 0.62, 95% CI: 0.40-0.94, P = 0.03 and OR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.57-0.95, P = 0.02, respectively. Also, a significantly lower rate of stent thrombosis with OR: 0.63, 95% CI: 0.46-0.86, P = 0.003 was observed in the EES group. However, a similar mortality rate was reported between the EES and non-EE DES groups.During this 1-year follow-up period, EES were associated with significantly better clinical outcomes compared to non-EE DES in patients suffering from T2DM. However, further research comparing EES with non-EE DES in insulin-treated and noninsulin-treated patients with T2DM are recommended.

Poly(vinyl alcohol) Physical Hydrogels: Matrix-Mediated Drug Delivery Using Spontaneously Eroding Substrate

Poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogels have a long and successful history of applications in biomedicine. Historically, these matrices were developed to be nondegradable—limiting their utility to applications as permanent implants. For tissue engineering and drug delivery, herein we develop spontaneously eroding physical hydrogels based on PVA. We characterize in detail a mild, noncryogenic method of producing PVA physical hydrogels using poly(ethylene glycol) as a gelating agent, and investigate PVA molar mass as a means to define the kinetics of erosion of these biomaterials. PVA hydrogels are characterized for associated inflammatory response in adhering macrophages, antiproliferative effects mediated through delivery of cytotoxic drugs to myoblasts, and pro-proliferative activity achieved via presentation of conjugated growth factors to endothelial cells. Together, these data present a multiangle characterization of these novel multifunctional matrices for applications in tissue engineering and drug delivery mediated by implantable biomaterials.

Smooth Muscle Cell-targeted RNA Aptamer Inhibits Neointimal Formation

Inhibition of vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation by drug eluting stents has markedly reduced intimal hyperplasia and subsequent in-stent restenosis. However, the effects of antiproliferative drugs on endothelial cells (EC) contribute to delayed re-endothelialization and late stent thrombosis. Cell-targeted therapies to inhibit VSMC remodeling while maintaining EC health are necessary to allow vascular healing while preventing restenosis. We describe an RNA aptamer (Apt 14) that functions as a smart drug by preferentially targeting VSMCs as compared to ECs and other myocytes. Furthermore, Apt 14 inhibits phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase-B (PI3K/Akt) and VSMC migration in response to multiple agonists by a mechanism that involves inhibition of platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR)-β phosphorylation. In a murine model of carotid injury, treatment of vessels with Apt 14 reduces neointimal formation to levels similar to those observed with paclitaxel. Importantly, we confirm that Apt 14 cross-reacts with rodent and human VSMCs, exhibits a half-life of ~300 hours in human serum, and does not elicit immune activation of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. We describe a VSMC-targeted RNA aptamer that blocks cell migration and inhibits intimal formation. These findings provide the foundation for the translation of cell-targeted RNA therapeutics to vascular disease.