title: Final results of a randomized trial comparing the MULTI-LINK stent with the Palmaz-Schatz stent for narrowings in native coronary arteries.
abstract: The MULTI-LINK (ML) stent is a novel second generation coronary stent. The ACS MultiLink Stent Clinical Equivalence in De Novo Lesions Trial (ASCENT) randomized 1,040 patients with single, de novo native vessel lesions to treatment with the ML stent or the benchmark Palmaz-Schatz (PS) stent, to demonstrate that the ML stent was not inferior to (i.e., equivalent or better than) the PS stent in terms of target vessel failure by 9 months. Successful stent delivery was achieved in 98.8% versus 96.9% of patients, with a slightly lower postprocedural diameter stenosis (8% vs 10%, p = 0.04), and no difference in 30-day major adverse cardiac events (5.0% vs 6.5%) for the ML stent versus the PS stent. The primary end point of target vessel failure at 9 months was seen in 15.1% of ML-treated patients versus 16.7% of PS-treated patients, with the ML proving to be equal or superior to the PS stent (p <0.001 by test for equivalency). In a prespecified subset, angiographic restudy showed a nonsignificant trend for reduced ML restenosis (16.0% vs 22.1%). Thus, the ML stent showed excellent deliverability and acute results, with 9-month clinical and 6-month angiographic outcomes that were equivalent or better than the PS stent.
authors.affiliation: Center for Innovative Minimally Invasive Therapy, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. dbaim@partners.org
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Baim
authors.forename: D E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Cutlip
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Midei
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Linnemeier
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schreiber
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cox
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kereiakes
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Popma
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Robertson
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Prince
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Lansky
authors.forename: K K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: R E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Kuntz
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015906:Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012008:Recurrence; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015607:Stents; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016896:Treatment Outcome