( Registry Analysis Published in Journal ...)New Study Suggests Better Patient Outcomes with CYPHER,Sirolimus-Eluting Coronary Stent than with Taxus Stent in,Real-World Clinical Settings,Health

MIAMI LAKES, Fla., June 4, 2007 /PRNewswire via COMTEX News Network/ -- An analysis of data from the Western Denmark Heart Registry found that patients who received the CYPHER(R) Sirolimus-eluting Coronary Stent to open a clogged artery were less likely to need another procedure at that same lesion site (a clinical event called target lesion revascularization or TLR) than patients who received a Taxus Stent. The analysis was published in the June 1 issue of the journal Heart.

The authors of the analysis sought to identify risk factors for symptom- driven TLR when patients were treated with the CYPHER(R) Stent or the Taxus Stent in a real-world scenario. From Jan. 1, 2003 to May 18, 2005, 4,432 patients in Western Denmark were treated with a drug-eluting stent (CYPHER(R) Stent: 2,728 patients; Taxus Stent: 1,704 patients). Use of a Taxus Stent (odds ratio of 1.43; p=0.022), implantation of multiple stents per lesion (odds ratio of 1.62; p=0.008) and stent implantation in small vessels (odds ratio of 1.42; p=0.049) were found to be independent predictors of the need for TLR at nine months after the procedure.

"The major new finding of this study was that the use of the Taxus Stent was an independent predictor of TLR for a real-world population of patients treated with the CYPHER(R) Stent and the Taxus Stent," said Michael Maeng, M.D., Principal Investigator, from Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark.

When the lesions were divided into subgroups according to vessel size, the CYPHER(R) Stent yielded a 20 percent relative reduction of TLR in large vessels (2.4 percent versus 3.0 percent in arteries with a reference diameter equal to or greater than 2.8 mm; p=not significant) and a 40 percent relative reductio
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