N. Kukreja

AIMS: To investigate the outcome of a real world diabetic patient cohort treated with bare metal stents (BMS), sirolimus-, or paclitaxel-eluting stents (SES and PES, respectively). Due to the different mechanisms of action of both drugs it is currently unknown which device is the best option to treat these high-risk patients. METHODS AND RESULTS: The study compares the 2-year clinical outcome of 708 consecutive diabetic patients (25% insulin treated) treated with either a BMS (n = 252), a SES (n = 206), or a PES (n = 250), as part of the RESEARCH and T-SEARCH registries. Target vessel revascularization was 19.5% in the BMS group, vs. 15.3% in the SES group and 9.7% in the PES group. PES (21.2%), but not SES (28.9%), were superior to BMS (29.7%) in reducing major adverse cardiac events. After propensity analyses, none of the differences remained significant. The incidence of stent thrombosis (ST) was high in both DES groups. CONCLUSION: There was a trend towards a more favourable outcome associated with the use of PES over BMS. There was no significant difference between SES and PES in each of the clinical endpoints, and neither in the NIDDM patients, which are hypothesized to be better-off with PES.

AIMS: To investigate the clinical impact of the following observations in the randomized SPIRIT II and III trials: an incremental increase in in-stent neointima between 1 and 2 years with the everolimus-eluting stent (EES) but not with the paclitaxel-eluting stent (PES) in SPIRIT II; a tendency of lower stent thrombosis in EES than in PES among those who first discontinued a thienopyridine after 6 months. METHODS AND RESULTS: A pooled analysis was performed using the 2-year clinical data from the SPIRIT II and III trials randomizing a total of 1302 patients with de novo coronary artery lesions either to EES or to PES. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were comparable between two trials. Major adverse cardiac event (MACE) was defined as cardiac death, myocardial infarction, or ischaemia-driven target lesion revascularization (TLR). At 2 years, MACE rates were 7.1% in EES vs. 12.3% in PES, respectively (log-rank P = 0.0014), without late increase in TLR. Among those who first discontinued a thienopyridine after 6 months, Academic Research Consortium (ARC) definite or probable stent thrombosis was 1.1% in EES vs. 1.3% in PES (P = 1.00). CONCLUSION: The benefits of EES in reducing TLR were robust between 6 months and 2 years. No significant difference in the thrombosis rate among those who first stopped a thienopyridine after 6 months was observed.

Background: Acute gallstone disease is a high-volume emergency general surgery presentation with wide variations in the quality of care provided across the UK. This controlled cohort evaluation assessed whether participation in a quality improvement collaborative approach reduced time to surgery for patients with acute gallstone disease to fewer than 8 days from presentation, in line with national guidance. Methods: Patients admitted to hospital with acute biliary conditions in England and Wales between 1 April 2014 and 31 December 2017 were identified from Hospital Episode Statistics data. Time series of quarterly activity were produced for the Cholecystectomy Quality Improvement Collaborative (Chole-QuIC) and all other acute National Health Service hospitals (control group). A negative binomial regression model was used to compare the proportion of patients having surgery within 8 days in the baseline and intervention periods. Results: Of 13 sites invited to join Chole-QuIC, 12 participated throughout the collaborative, which ran from October 2016 to January 2018. Of 7944 admissions, 1160 patients had a cholecystectomy within 8 days of admission, a significant improvement (P < 0050) from baseline performance. This represented a relative change of 156 (95 per cent c.i. 138 to 175), compared with 108 for the control group. At the individual site level, eight of the 12 Chole-QuIC sites showed a significant improvement (P < 0050), with four sites increasing their 8-day surgery rate to over 20 per cent of all emergency admissions, well above the mean of 153 per cent for control hospitals. Conclusion: A surgeon-led quality improvement collaborative approach improved care for patients requiring emergency cholecystectomy.

OBJECTIVE: The The Arterial Revascularization Therapies Study (ARTS)-II trial found no differences in survival or overall adverse events between sirolimus-eluting stents (SES) and the surgical arm of ARTS-I. Nevertheless, existing data suggest that patients with disease of the proximal left anterior descending artery (LAD) may derive particular benefit from coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). We therefore analysed the clinical outcome of patients in ARTS-I and ARTS-II with proximal LAD involvement. DESIGN: Multicentre observational study. SETTING: Forty-five European academic hospitals. PATIENTS: Patients with multivessel coronary artery disease. INTERVENTIONS: Patients in ARTS-II with proximal LAD disease treated with SES (289/607, 48%) were compared with 187/600 (31%) bare metal stent patients (ARTS-I BMS) and 206/605 (34%) surgical patients (ARTS-I CABG) with proximal LAD involvement from ARTS-I. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events after 3 years. RESULTS: The Arterial Revascularization Therapies study part 2 (ARTS-II) subgroup had better survival than both ARTS-I groups (ARTS-II 98.6% vs ARTS-I BMS 95.7%, p = 0.05 and vs ARTS-I CABG 94.7%, p = 0.01) and lower rates of the hard clinical composite endpoint of death or non-fatal myocardial infarction (ARTS-II 3.1% vs ARTS-I BMS 9.6%, p = 0.002 and vs ARTS-I CABG 9.7%, p = 0.002). Although the ARTS-I CABG patients had a lower need for repeat revascularisation than ARTS-II (5.3% vs 13.1%, p = 0.002), the overall composite adverse event rates (death, myocardial infarction, stroke or any repeat revascularisation) were not significantly different between the ARTS-I CABG and ARTS-II patients (15.0% vs 18.0%, p = 0.4). CONCLUSIONS: SES are not inferior to CABG or bare metal stents for the treatment of patients with multivessel coronary disease including involvement of the proximal LAD.