The Terumo stent is a new, balloon-expandable, stainless-steel device with a unique multicellular design to provide robust radial force and end-stoppers to prevent dislodgement. We evaluated the early and late clinical and angiographic outcomes of Terumo coronary stent implantation in native coronary arteries using an open, nonrandomized 3-center registry. From July 1998 to June 1999, a total of 118 Terumo stents were implanted in 105 patients (mean age, 58 +/- 10 years). A significant proportion of patients suffered from diabetes (34%), prior myocardial infarction (MI; 43%) and unstable angina (31%). Most target lesions (48%) had unfavorable morphological characteristics (type B2 or C); mean reference luminal diameter was 2.76 +/- 0.41 mm and lesion length was 11.4 +/- 5.3 mm. Primary success in stent deployment was achieved in 103 patients (98%). There was 1 patient with acute stent thrombosis in whom 2 overlapping stents were deployed. Following stenting, the minimal luminal diameter increased from 1.04 +/- 0.48 mm to 2.39 +/- 0.33 mm. Six-month angiography was performed in 97 patients (92%), and the binary angiographic restenosis (> or = 50% narrowing) rate was 16%. Late loss index was 0.50 +/- 0.43. By 6 months, two patients (1.9%) died, two patients (1.9%) had Q-wave MI and 9 patients (8.4%) required repeat coronary interventions. Therefore, our study shows that the Terumo stent is potentially safe and efficacious in the treatment of coronary narrowings, even in the presence of unfavorable clinical conditions and complex lesion morphological characteristics.