cortisone or drug eluting stents (des) as compared to bare metal stents (bms) to eliminate restenosis

Conditions: Coronary Artery Disease; Ischemic Heart Disease; Atherosclerosis

Summary: the possibility of using the new drug eluting stents (des) technology has significantly changed the mid-term outcome of percutaneous coronary interventions (pci) in terms of reduced recurrence of angina. the way interventionalists accomplish their work is changing accordingly, with a strong trend to a wider use of des and a consequent perceived patients' clinical benefit. evidences supporting the superiority of des in reducing ischemic recurrence after pci compared to traditional stents (bms) are available from randomized studies. a recent meta-analyses underlines that: des are superior to bms in reducing clinical recurrence of ischemia, des and bms offer identical results in terms of death and infarction, rapamycin and paclitaxel des offer similar results. the aim of our study is to perform a multicenter, randomized study to assess the clinical efficacy and safety of the oral prednisone therapy after pci as a possible systemic alternative to currently available bms and des. furthermore, the study aims at analyzing the clinical outcome of the commercially available des in the context of an independent research and a cost-benefit comparison with bms and oral steroids.

design of the study it is very important to underline that this is a "spontaneous" study, i.e. not receiving sponsorship from pharmaceutical industries, stent manufacturers, or any other financial source. this independence from economic interests would contribute to exclude conflicts of interest that may bias the results of the study that is aimed at testing the applicability and the clinical efficacy of this therapy. furthermore, the assessment of the des in public hospitals, and beyond the spectrum of the industry-supported studies may offer interesting results of the real life use of these devices. one of the purposes of the study is a cost-effectiveness analysis. centers participating in the study should therefore perform pci according to their common practice with no interference in their decision-making process or technical approach to pci because of the inclusion of the patients into a randomized study; this is aimed at obtaining an as real as possible situation of the daily practice. being an spontaneous research, neither a fee will be provided for the enrollment of patients, nor free stents will be given. the allocation of patients into a bms or des treatment will be decided by randomization, and the stents implanted will be selected according to the operator's preference. the study will include three different groups of patients: * control group: receiving bms; * des group: receiving des; * prednisone group: receiving bms and oral prednisone principal objective of the study: is the comparison of the primary endpoint obtained in a control group of patients treated with bms versus two alternative study groups: * des * bms and oral prednisone all assuming a similar adjunctive conventional medical treatment. secondary endpoint of the study are: * cost-effectiveness analysis. this will be calculated considering all patients enrolled in the study and analyzed after one year of the treatment. the analysis will take into account the procedural cost of the pci material, the cost of the medical treatment in the first year of follow-up and the number of event-free days at follow-up. the cost-efficacy analysis will be obtained from the ratio between the cost of the event-free day of follow-up and the possibility of mace considered in the primary endpoint of the study. * comparison of the angiographic results. this will be calculated in all patients enrolled.

Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: * patients with diagnosed cad (either svd or mvd) with signs or symptoms of myocardial ischemia, scheduled for percutaneous revascularization are all candidates. * either native vessels and svg can be included with de-novo or recurrent lesions. * lesions causing a diameter stenosis \>50% in a main coronary artery (lad, rca, lcx) or their principal branches (dg, om, pl, pda). exclusion criteria: * diabetes * age over 80 years old * recent q wave myocardial infarction (less than 2 weeks) * severe hypertension, uncontrolled despite medical treatment * gastric ulcer or symptomatic gastritis * neoplasia * renal failure (creatinine \>2.5) * left main disease, or left main equivalent (proximal lad and proximal lcx), or three vessel disease involving the proximal segments of the 3 main coronary branches * suboptimal angiographic result of pci (ds% \>30% or timi flow \<grade 3) * contraindications to high-doses of steroids (immunosuppression, active infective disease, osteoporosis, recent use of high doses of steroids).