Abstract
REC-CAGEFREE I is a randomized open-label trial conducted in 2272 patients with de novo non-complex coronary artery disease in China, which demonstrated that a strategy of paclitaxel-coated drug-eluting balloon angioplasty [Swide (Shenqi Medical, Shanghai, China)] and bail-out stent did not achieve non-inferiority to sirolimus-eluting stent implantation [Firebird 2 (Microport, Shanghai, China)] on the primary composite endpoint, defined as cardiovascular death, target vessel myocardial infarction, or clinically and physiologically indicated target lesion revascularization, assessed at 2 years. In this manuscript, we report the salient data of this study, highlighting relevant details about the design, the type of lesions included, and the clinical implications of these results. The main limitation of this study is the evaluation of lesions where the drug-eluting stents have demonstrated excellent short- and long-term results.