[Pilot study of the efficacy of ticlopidine in early patency of coronary endoprostheses].

Subacute thrombosis of coronary stents is the main complication of this technique. The authors studied the outcome of 387 patients and 400 coronary arteries who underwent implantation of 427 stents between December 1989 and February 1994 and followed up one month after the procedure: all patients receive 500 mg of ticlopidine daily from three days before angioplasty throughout the hospital period and continued for at least one month. Anticoagulation with heparin was undertaken by the intravenous route after implantation and relayed with subcutaneous heparin for one week until control coronary angiography performed in the first 300 patients. At one month, 96.9% of patients were free of clinical coronary events. The following major complications were observed: 5 deaths (1.3%), 5 Q wave myocardial infarctions (1.3%); no emergency bypass surgery. The peripheral vascular complication rate was 3.6%. Univariate analysis three risk factors of subacute thrombosis: age (p = 0.0058), arterial diameter of less than 3 mm (p < 0.01) and implantation for occlusive dissection (p = 0.03). Multivariate analysis showed two independent risk factors: age (p = 0.001) and arterial diameter of less than 3 mm (p = 0.01). This pilot study shows a particularly low subacute thrombosis rate in unselected indications with an acceptable level of vascular complications.