Primary and rescue percutaneous coronary intervention with paclitaxel-eluting stent implantation in ST-elevation myocardial infarction.

We conducted a retrospective comparison of paclitaxel-eluting stents (PESs, n = 60) versus bare metal stents (BMSs, n = 137) in consecutive patients who underwent primary or rescue percutaneous coronary intervention over 1 year. The PES cohort had no in-stent thromboses and had a 65% (p = 0.02) decrease in the combined end point of death, recurrent myocardial infarction, and target vessel revascularization at 1 year compared with the BMS group. PES implantation appears to be safe and possibly superior to BMS implantation in terms of 1-year major cardiovascular outcomes in the setting of ST-elevation myocardial infarction.