Drug-eluting stents (drug-eluting stents, DES) for below-knee arterial lesions and shorter long been clear, and for a long period knee artery disease, growing evidence supports the use of paclitaxel-coated balloon (paclitaxel-coated balloons , PCB) treatment.

To this end, researchers from Greece and the United Kingdom conducted a study called IDEAS. The results showed that, compared with the PCB, DES in the treatment of long below-knee arterial disease, postoperative residual stenosis less, six months after the reduction was also significantly better than the PCB vascular stenosis, article published in September this year in JACC.

IDEAS is a prospective, randomized controlled study comparing the efficacy of PCB and DES knee length segment artery disease. Criteria for recruitment: Rutherford grade 3-6 level, and angiography showed lesions below the knee length is not less than 70 mm. The main clinical endpoints were: six months after treatment, digital angiography target lesion restenosis> 50%; secondary clinical endpoints included postoperative rapid restenosis and target lesion revascularization.

50 subjects were randomly assigned to receive either knee PCB angioplasty (25 of 25 lower limb arteries, PCB group) or first DES implantation (27 of 30 lower limb arteries, DES group). The results showed that DES group were significantly lower residual stenosis. 6 months after surgery, five patients died (PCB Group 2, DES group 3), three patients received high-amputation (PCB group 1, DES group 2).
Research on 44 vessels were quantitatively vessel analysis, the analysis found, DES group secondary angiographic restenosis rate was significantly lower than the PCB group. The incidence of revascularization was not significantly different between the two groups of the target lesion. PCB group had three patients with positive remodeling of the vessel wall (Positive vessel wall remodeling).