Drug-eluting Stents More Efficient Than Bare Metal Stents

Drug-eluting stents are efficient and safe on heart attack patients undergoing angioplasty.

Lead researcher Dr. Gregg W. Stone, a professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center/New York-Presbyterian Hospital, has revealed that in patients undergoing angioplasty, the use of paclitaxel-eluting stents has been found to reduce rates of target lesion revascularization (TLR) and binary angiographic restenosis when compared to the use of bare-metal stents after 1 year.

Drug eluting stents may cause allergic reactions
Researchers have found that drug eluting stents can be used alternatively to conventional by pass surgery to remove artery clogs.

The study also revealed that the primary safety measure of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE)-including death, reinfarction, stent thrombosis and stroke-established the non-inferiority of drug-eluting stents with respect to safety through 1 year.

The trial enrolled 3,602 heart attack patients at 123 centers in 11 countries, 3,006 of whom were randomised to paclitaxel-eluting stents versus otherwise identical bare metal stents.

During the trial, the use of paclitaxel-eluting stents resulted in a significant reduction of ischemia-driven target-lesion revascularization (TLR)-the rate at which a particular lesion re-narrows following stent implantation severely enough to require either a repeat angioplasty or bypass surgery operation-at 12 months.

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A study published today in The New England Journal of Medicine (May 7, 2009) (1), analysed the outcomes of 47,967 patients entered into the Swedish Coronary Angiography

The use of paclitaxel-eluting stents also resulted in a significant reduction in binary restenosis after 13 months, which is the rate at which the artery re-narrows at least 50 per cent following implantation of the stent, and was the secondary efficacy endpoint of the trial. The paclitaxel-eluting stent had a rate of 10 per cent and the bare metal stent had a rate of 22.9 per cent.

"Outcomes from prior registry and randomised trials of drug-eluting stents compared to bare metal stents in heart attack patients have been conflicting. These results now provide definitive evidence that paclitaxel-eluting stents are superior in efficacy to bare metal stents and have a comparable safety profile at 1 year," said Dr. Stone.

Drug Eluting Stents Do Improve Angioplasty Outcomes: Research
Researchers found that patients receiving drug eluting stents (DES) as part of an angioplasty had better outcomes one year later than patients with bare metal stents.

The researchers believe that the findings of their study will have a major impact on how decisions are made regarding drug-eluting and bare metal stents in the highest risk patients, those in the early hours of a heart attack.

"This study removes much of the uncertainty and concern about the efficacy and safety of drug-eluting stents in this clinical setting. Moreover, all of the patients in this trial will be followed long-term to ensure that these favorable results are maintained," said Dr. Stone.

A research article on the trial has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Source-ANI
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