In a trial involving over 9000 patients with coronary artery disease who were assigned to receive either contemporary drug-eluting stents or bare-metal stents, there was no significant between-group difference in a composite outcome of death from any cause or nonfatal MI at 6 years. Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with implantation of drug-eluting or bare-metal stents has become one of the most frequently performed therapeutic procedures in medicine. 1 Each year, millions of patients are treated worldwide. 1 , 2 The use of drug-eluting stents has been shown to be more effective in the prevention of restenosis than the use of bare-metal stents, 1 and the use of newer-generation drug-eluting stents, as compared with first-generation devices, 3 , 4 may also reduce the rate of stent thrombosis. 5 – 8 It has been suggested that the benefits associated with the use of newer-generation drug-eluting stents may translate into reduced rates of death and . . .