Drug-eluting stents: do the risks really outweigh the benefits?

The safety of drug-eluting stents (DES) has been called into question by studies suggesting a predisposition to late stent thrombosis—an uncommon but potentially fatal complication.1–4 Consequently, balancing the risks and benefits of DES use in an individual patient undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is challenging, particularly as studies have often been unrepresentative of routine practice, underpowered, prone to bias or used inconsistent definitions of stent thrombosis