Impact of concomitant treatment with proton pump inhibitors and clopidogrel on clinical outcome in patients after coronary stent implantation

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of the concomitant treatment with proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) and clopidogrel on the incidence of stent thrombosis, acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and death in patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and stent implantation. In total, 1,210 patients under dual antiplatelet therapy, who underwent PCI and stent implantation, were included in a prospective registry from January 2003 until December 2006. The patients were divided retrospectively into those with or without long-term PPI treatment (for the duration of dual antiplatelet therapy).All-cause mortality, cardiovascular death, re-hospitalisation for re-ACS, stent thrombosis, as well as the combined endpoint all-cause death, re-ACS or stent thrombosis were evaluated over a mean followup period of 7.8 (+/- 3.63) months (range 1-12 months). Propensity score analysis was performed to reduce potential selection bias and exhibited no significant difference between the two study groups with respect to all-cause mortality, cardiovascular death, re-ACS, stent thrombosis and the combined endpoint. In pre-specified subgroup analyses performed in patients presenting with ACS and referred for acute PCI or for stable patients referred for elective PCI, receiving drug-eluting stents or bare metal stents, in diabetics or non-diabetics, in males or females, and in patients older than 75 years or <= 75 years of age use of PPIs had no significant impact on clinical outcome. Our data suggest that a combined use of clopidogrel as part of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after coronary stenting and PPIs does not significantly influence the clinical outcome.