The use of DES have not diminished the need of improved treatment strategies , especially the treatment of bifurcation lesions still leave much to be clarified. Particularly, for bifurcation lesions where stenting the main branch could result in an obstruction of a vital side branch, many reports have been about using 2 drug-eluting stents. Resulting in less than favorable, target lesion revascularization (TLR) rates, with 10-15% for main branch and 11-40% for side branch. In Japan, the PERFECT multi-center registry evaluated outcomes of single stenting plus kissing balloon technique after Directional Coronary Atherectomy (DCA) removal of tissue plaques. TLR rates for both main branch and side branch were a satisfactory 1.3%. However, the DCA technique is mainly suitable for proximal coronary artery lesions, and takes skilled operators. For the treatment of relatively distal bifurcation lesions, where first POBA is performed, then the lesion is stented, followed by kissing balloon technique to fully expand the side branch, is considered a viable treatment.

The Toyohashi Heart Center outcomes from August 2004 for this single stent and kissing ballooning technique, using the sirolimus-eluting stent on bifurcation lesions, achieved a satisfactory 5.2% TLR for both main and side branches, suggesting that using two stents may not be necessarily the ideal treatment.

The paclitaxel-eluting stent is expected to become available in Japan from June 2007. This stent's cells can be expanded to a maximum of 3.5mm, which should provide a larger lumen access for side-branch treatment.

As such, we developed this study to compare the outcomes of paclitaxel-eluting and sirolimus-eluting stents in bifurcation lesions that require side branch dilatation using the kissing ballooning technique.