Late-breaking data were presented from the investigator-initiated COMPARE trial of 1,800 real-world patients involving Abbott's market-leading XIENCE V® Everolimus Eluting Coronary Stent System and the TAXUS® Liberte® Paclitaxel-Eluting Coronary Stent System (TAXUS). The results from COMPARE at two years were presented by Peter Smits, M.D., of Maasstad Ziekenhuis, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, during the Cardiovascular Research Foundation's 22nd annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference in Washington, D.C.

For the endpoint of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) at two years, which is a composite of all death, non-fatal heart attack (myocardial infarction or MI) and target vessel revascularization (TVR), XIENCE V showed a 34 percent lower incidence of MACE compared to TAXUS (9.0 percent for XIENCE V vs. 13.7 percent for TAXUS, p-value=0.0016). The composite secondary endpoint of cardiac death, non-fatal MI and target lesion revascularization (TLR) resulted in a 35 percent lower incidence for XIENCE V compared to TAXUS (7.4 percent for XIENCE V vs. 11.4 percent for TAXUS, p-value=0.0038).

In addition, XIENCE V demonstrated a 77 percent lower rate of stent thrombosis, defined as definite or probable according to ARC (0.9 percent for XIENCE V vs. 3.9 percent for TAXUS, p-value=