Angiographic pattern of in-stent restenosis (ISR) after drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation different to that after bare metal stent (BMS), but their subsequent TLR rate was similar to both types of DES.
Drug-eluting stents (DES) have gained widespread adoption being implanted in over 6 million patients worldwide demonstrating significant improvements in clinical efficacy combined with comparable safety to bare metal stents.
We must optimize stent deployment & maintain a registry of how well (or poorly) we use drug-eluting stents. Instead of asking “Which stent?” or “How much anti-platelet therapy?” we must ask “How effectively are we deploying our stents?”
FDA says drug-eluting stents are safe & effective in stable patients with single-vessel disease; even so, they'll have to take Plavix (clopidogrel) & aspirin for a year or more...up to a lifetime. High-risk patients with multivessel disease are much more
An investigational bioabsorbable coronary artery stent, in its first human trials, showed acceptable safety, with efficacy better than bare-metal devices but well short of drug-eluting devices, Dutch researchers said here.
Articles on the various questions, problems, and controversies currently plaguing drug-eluting stents: deployment techniques, stent qualities, antiplatelet therapies, and etiologies of post-DES thrombosis and restenosis.
Two Swiss meta-analyses have found an increased rate of myocardial infarction and death with the Cypher (sirolimus-eluting) coronary stent, which is likely to put a serious chill in interventional cardiology's infatuation with drug-coated devices