For patients with oral anticoagulants (OAC) undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), European guidelines have recently changed their recommendations to dual antithrombotic therapy (DAT; P2Y inhibitor and OAC) without aspirin.
The prospective WOEST 2 registry was designed to obtain contemporary real-world data on antithrombotic regimens and related outcomes after PCI in patients with an indication for OAC.
In this analysis, we compare DAT (P2Y inhibitor and OAC) to triple antithrombotic therapy (TAT; aspirin, P2Y inhibitor, and OAC) on thrombotic and bleeding outcomes after one year. Clinically relevant bleeding was defined as Bleeding Academic Research Consortium classification (BARC) grade 2, 3, or 5; major bleeding as BARC grade 3 or 5. Major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) was defined as a composite of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis, ischaemic stroke, and transient ischaemic attack.
A total of 1,075 patients were included between 2014 and 2021. Patients used OAC for atrial fibrillation (93.6%) or mechanical heart valve prosthesis (4.7%). Non-vitamin K oral anticoagulant (NOAC) was prescribed in 53.1% and vitamin K antagonists in 46.9% of patients. At discharge, 60.9% received DAT, and 39.1% TAT. DAT was associated with less clinically relevant and similar major bleeding (16.8% vs 23.4%; p<0.01 and 7.6% vs 7.7%, not significant), compared to TAT. MACCE was not statistically significant different (12.4% vs 9.7%; p=0.17). Multivariable adjustment and propensity score matching confirmed these results.
Dual antithrombotic therapy is associated with a substantially lower risk of clinically relevant bleeding without a statistically significant penalty in ischaemic events.

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