Expected one-year costs were EUR 11,714 ± EUR 9,967 with bare-metal stents and EUR 12,713 ± EUR 10,753 with drug-eluting stents. The additional cost with drug-eluting stents was EUR 1,000 (95% CI –24 to 2,044).
The one-year survival rate was 97.50% in the bare-metal stent group and 97.36% in the drug-eluting stent group. The incremental 365-day survival of the drug-eluting stent group compared with the bare-metal stent group was -0.14% (95% CI –1.95% to 1.39%).
Under base case conditions, bare-metal stents were the dominant strategy as they were slightly more effective and cheaper than drug-eluting stents.
The bootstrapping analysis showed that drug-eluting stents were dominant in 2.7% of replications, while drug-eluting stents dominated in 54.4% of iterations.
Results were generally robust, as shown in the sensitivity analyses. Only in the subgroup of non-ST elevation myocardial infarction patients, were drug-eluting stents associated with a significant improvement in one-year survival, resulting in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of EUR 36,563 per life saved with drug-eluting stents over bare-metal stents.