Large Study Gives Nod to Drug-Eluting Stents in He...( Arterial renarrowing less likely...),Health

Arterial renarrowing less likely, with no increase in mortality on

long-term follow-up

CHICAGO, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Although drug-eluting stents have become widely used for the treatment of stable coronary artery disease, many cardiologists choose bare-metal stents for patients with heart attack, or myocardial infarction (MI), citing conflicting data about the safety and effectiveness of drug-eluting stents in this patient group. Such concerns are being challenged by an analysis of a large Massachusetts database.

The analysis showed a significantly lower risk of arterial renarrowing, or restenosis, among heart attack patients who were treated with drug-eluting stents, with no increase in mortality, when compared to those treated with bare-metal stents.

The study is being reported today in a Late-Breaking Clinical Trials session at the SCAI Annual Scientific Sessions in Partnership with ACC i2 Summit (SCAI-ACCi2) in Chicago. SCAI-ACCi2 is a scientific meeting for practicing cardiovascular interventionalists sponsored by the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) in partnership with the American College of Cardiology (ACC).

"This study confirms that the same benefits that drug-eluting stents offer other patients in preventing restenosis of the coronary arteries are still there for patients with MI, and there doesn't appear to be any trade-off in increased risk of repeat MI or death," said Laura Mauri, MD, MSC, an interventional cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and chief scientific officer at the Harvard Clinical Research Institute, all in Boston.

Cardiologists have had to decide which type of stent to use in heart attack patients based on small randomized trials that didn't include long-term follow-up and reported conflicting results. There have also been concerns that, because heart attack pa
'/>"/>