The introduction of drug-eluting stents (DES) in the treatment of coronary artery disease has led to a significant reduction in morbidity but there are further demands on DES performance. Such demands are an optimized performance in very challenging coronary lesions; third generation DES were developed in an effort to further improve DES performance in such challenging lesions. Two CE-certified third generation DES (Resolute Integrity and Promus Element stents) are currently available; there are no data that indicate an advantage of one of these DES over the other.