Newly reported data presented at the 20th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium, sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) from the SYNTAX clinical trial (SYNergy Between PCI With TAXUS and Cardiac Surgery) reveal similar safety and efficacy outcomes when the use of a drug-eluting stent is compared to heart bypass surgery in patients with left main disease.

Rates of major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) in patients with left main disease who received a stent were comparable with those who received bypass surgery (15.8% vs. 13.7% respectively). In addition, the overall safety measures of death, stroke and heart attack were similar: 7.0% for the patients that received a stent and 9.2% for the patients that received bypass surgery. Most importantly, patients who received stents rather than bypass surgery had fewer strokes at 1 year (0.3% vs. 2.7%, p=0.009), with similar rates of death (4.2% vs. 4.4 % respectively).

In patients with three-vessel disease, safety measures were comparable; however, the data reveal that patients who received angioplasty did show higher rates of revascularization and MACCE than those who received bypass surgery. In this group, the rate of revascularization in the stent group was higher (14.7% vs 5.4%, P