Relatively small numbers of women in stenting trials have precluded definitive evidence of benefit, but a large pooled analysis strongly suggests stents are safe and effective in women.
Slightly more than one-fourth of 44,000 patients in 26 trials were women and their rates of death or myocardial infarction at 3 years were similar to that of men, and improved as stenting technology advanced, according to Roxana Mehran, MD, director of Interventional Cardiovascular Research and Clinical Trials at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and colleagues.
The composite of death or MI occurred in 13% of women in the bare-metal stent group, 11% in the early-generation drug-eluting stent (DES) group, and 9% in the newer-generation DES group (P<0.001), they reported online in The Lancet to coincide with presentation of the study at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Amsterdam.
“The magnitude of benefit seems to be in line with what has been shown for men in clinical trials,” Mehran told MedPage Today.
“The most compelling data was that the use of DES significantly reduced target lesion revascularization — the primary efficacy endpoint — at 3 years,” Dipti Itchhaporia, MD, immediate past chair of the board of governors of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and a co-author, told MedPage Today.