Newer generation stent delivers good 1-year functional outcome in patients with SFA disease

摘要

The report by Krankenberg et al. in this issue of the JEVT describes the need for clinically driven target lesion revascularization (TLR) following a single brand of nitinoi stent implantation within the superficial femoral artery (SFA) of mainly claudicants (95%), reflecting a real-world experience with Med-tronic's MARIS stent. While the study included 13 participating centers, the majority of the cases actually came from 3 centers and thus represents a much smaller "real-world" environment than would be anticipated. It is important to note the median treatment length was <10 cm, which is considered a subgroup that does well with intervention. This is clearly a reason for their excellent results. The authors clearly state, "The incidence of TLR was significantly associated with the lesion length: 9.3% for lesions <10 cm, 19.6% for lesions between 10 and 20 cm, and 25.1% for lesions >20 cm." Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that lesion length and female gender remain independent risk factors for TLR within the SFA in this population. This study clearly underlines that outside a clinical trial the best results are achieved when the original inclusion criteria are used and the IFU are clearly followed. The results reflect the established paradigms in SFA disease.