The aim of this study is to clarify the characteristics and trends of POBA in current drug-eluting stent (DES) era. We examined retrospectively the cases of POBA performed in our institute during the years from 2008 to 2012. For control, bare metal stents (BMS) and DES implantation done in 2011 were analyzed. During the period, 85 cases of POBA, 63 BMS and 132 DES were identified. In the result, the rate of restenosis in POBA was significantly higher than BMS and DES (39.7, 14.9, 3.7 %, POBA, BMS, DES, respectively, p < 0.001). We assumed three categories depending on the reasons for selecting POBA. (1) Stent delivery failure or expected difficulty of stent delivery due to calcification, etc. (n = 14), (2) intervention for in-stent restenosis or stent thrombosis (n = 34), (3) successful POBA applied to small vessels without complication (n = 14). According to it, category 1 showed significantly high probability of restenosis compared with others [(1) 10/14, 71.4 %, (2) 12/34, 35.3 %, 3; 2/14, 14.3 %, p < 0.05]. In addition, category 3 showed nearly as good as BMS. Balloons used in POBA contained 32 non-compliant balloons and 14 scoring balloons, whereas 30 were semi-compliant balloons only. ACC/AHA lesion type B2/C was 85.7, 45.7 and 50.0 %, and cases treated only with semi-compliant balloon were 57.1, 14.3, 92.9 % (category (1), (2) and (3), respectively, both p < 0.05). Therefore, this fact shows that a case of small vessel of which diameter is less than 2.5 mm would have a favorable outcome with POBA when treated well only with semi-compliant balloon under the current DES era.