Effects of statin therapy in patients treated with drug-eluting and drug-coated stents for femoropopliteal lesions.

OBJECTIVE

The effects of statins on drug-eluting and drug-coated stents for femoropopliteal lesions are not well known. Therefore, this multicenter retrospective study evaluated the impact of statins on the patency of drug-eluting and drug-coated stents.

METHODS

Between January 2018 and December 2021, a total of 449 patients were treated with drug-eluting and drug-coated stents at eight cardiovascular centers in Japan (LEADers femoropopliteal lesion registry). These lesions were divided into statin-treated and non-statin-treated arms. After propensity-score matching, the effects of statins on drug-eluting and drug-coated stents were evaluated. The primary outcome was the 2-year primary patency in the statin and nonstatin groups. The secondary outcomes included secondary patency, freedom from clinically driven target lesion revascularization, and freedom from all-cause mortality at 2 years.

RESULTS

After propensity-score matching, the baseline characteristics did not differ significantly between the 134 patient pairs in the statin and nonstatin groups. The primary patency at 2 years was significantly better in the statin group than in the nonstatin group (87.3% vs 75.8%, P = .043). In terms of secondary outcomes, the statin group tended to have better secondary patency than the nonstatin group (94.4% vs 87.5%, P = .064). There was no significant difference between the groups in freedom from clinically driven target lesion revascularization and freedom from all-cause mortality (90.8% vs 84.7%, P = .15; 75.8% vs 70.7%, P = .31, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this study demonstrated that the statin group had superior primary patency to that of the nonstatin group at 2 years. These findings suggest that statins improve the patency of implanted drug-eluting or drug-coated stents for femoropopliteal lesions.