Interventional cardiologists have quickly replaced bare metal stents with intravascular drug-eluting stents (DES) for treating and preventing restenosis, largely on the basis of empirical evidence that shows profound reduction in angiographic and clinical restenosis. A critical reassessment of the published evidence, however, suggests that the putative superiority of intravascular drug-eluting stents is founded on questionable premises, including overestimation of restenosis benefit, underestimation of the risk for stent thrombosis, overreliance on "soft" rather than "hard" outcomes and the...