title: Early vessel healing of the Avantgarde cobalt-chromium coronary stent: the ON-GARDE OCT study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Uncoverage and malapposition of stent struts at optical coherence tomography (OCT) have been associated with stent thrombosis. Stent uncoverage by OCT is being used as a surrogate to address the propensity of a stent to develop thrombosis. We aimed to appraise early vessel healing in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) treated with the novel Avantgarde stent.
  
  
  METHODS
  Patients with STEMI and multivessel disease were enrolled. The stent deployed on the infarct-related artery was imaged by frequency domain-OCT during deferred intervention (4-7 days apart). The primary end-point was the percentage of uncovered struts. Secondary end-points were the percentage of malapposed struts and struts covered with thrombus.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty patients (20 lesions) were enrolled, with 18 (18 stents) achieving a complete OCT pull-back and thus entering the final analysis (1497 cross-sections, 11 446 struts). Uncovered struts were 3.9%, whilst 8.0% of struts were malapposed and 2.6% were covered by thrombus. At per-stent analysis, all stents but two had a homogeneous distribution of strut coverage (i.e. % of uncovered struts ≥10).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study, originally exploiting OCT data early after stenting in STEMI patients, shows that the Avantgarde stent is associated with favourable vessel healing features.
authors.affiliation: Interventional Cardiology, San Giovanni Hospital, Rome, Italy. fprati@hsangiovanni.roma.it
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Prati
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Monaco
authors.forename: Tomasz
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pawlosky
authors.forename: Maria Teresa
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Mallus
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Di Giorgio
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Imola
authors.forename: Eleonora
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ficarra
authors.forename: Vito
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ramazzotti
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Biondi-Zoccai
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Albertucci
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015906:Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000295:instrumentation*; D002857:Chromium; D003035:Cobalt; D003328:Coronary Thrombosis / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D015607:Stents / Q000009:adverse effects; D013997:Time Factors; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D002857:Chromium; D003035:Cobalt