Comparison of diamond-like carbon-coated stents versus uncoated stainless steel stents in coronary artery disease.

Stainless steel (SS) and carbon-coated (CC) stents were randomly compared in 347 patients (520 lesions). No differences were observed in in-hospital major adverse cardiac events: 2.8% in the CC group and 4.5% in the SS group (p = 0.286). The 6-month follow-up showed similar rates of binary restenosis (31.8% in the CC group vs 35.9% in the SS group; p = 0.448) and of cumulative major adverse cardiac events (30.5% in the CC group vs 32.7% in the SS group; p = 0.675). In unselected patients and lesions, carbon coating does not provide significant improvements over SS stents with the same design.