Two-year follow-up after percutaneous coronary intervention with titanium-nitride-oxide-coated stents versus paclitaxel-eluting stents in acute myocardial infarction.
BACKGROUND AND AIMS
The aim of this study was to evaluate the long-term effects of the titanium-nitride-oxide-coated (TITANOX) stent and the paclitaxel-eluting stent (PES) in patients who had undergone a percutaneous coronary intervention for acute myocardial infarction (MI).


METHODS AND RESULTS
The TITAX-AMI trial randomly assigned 425 patients with MI to receive either a TITANOX stent or a PES. The primary end-point was a composite of MI, target lesion revascularization, or death from cardiac causes. At 12 months, there was no significant difference between patients receiving TITANOX stent or PES in the rate of primary end-point (10.3% versus 12.8%, P=0.5). After 2 years of follow-up, a significantly lower rate of primary end-point was observed in the TITANOX stent group compared with the PES group (11.2% versus 21.8%, HR 2.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3-3.8, P=0.004). This difference was driven by a reduced rate of MI (5.1% versus 15.6%, P<0.001) and cardiac death (0.9% versus 4.7%, P=0.02) in favour of the TITANOX stent. Definite stent thrombosis occurred in 0.5% and 6.2% of the patients (P=0.001), respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The implantation of a TITANOX stent resulted in better clinical outcome compared with a PES during 2 years of follow-up among patients treated for acute MI.