Intravascular brachytherapy versus drug-eluting stents for the treatment of patients with drug-eluting stent restenosis.

Drug-eluting stents (DESs), although promising technology, still are associated with restenosis; therefore, we evaluated the safety and efficacy of intravascular radiation therapy for the treatment of DES in-stent restenosis (ISR). Treatment of DES ISR has not been established, although intravascular radiation therapy is an effective treatment for patients with ISR of bare metal stents. Other modalities are conventional percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), including restenting with DES. Radiation for Eluting Stents in Coronary FailUrE (RESCUE) is an international, Internet-based registry of 61 patients who presented with ISR of a DES and were assigned to intravascular radiation therapy with commercially available systems after PCI. Outcomes of these patients were compared with those of a consecutive series of 50 patients who presented with ISR of a DES and were assigned to repeat DES (r-DES) treatment. Baseline clinical and angiographic characteristics were similar between groups, except for more Cypher stents as the initial DES that restenosed in the r-DES group than in the intravascular radiation therapy group (88.5% vs 69%, p = 0.01). At 8 months there were fewer overall major adverse cardiac events in the intravascular radiation therapy group compared with the r-DES group (9.8% vs 24%, p = 0.044). The need for target vessel and target lesion revascularizations was similar in the 2 groups at 8 months. There has been no report of subacute thrombosis in either group. In conclusion, intravascular radiation therapy as adjunct therapy to PCI for patients presenting with ISR of a DES is safe and should be considered an alternative therapeutic option for this difficult subset of patients.