Positive Five-Year Safety Data for TAXUS(R) Stent Reported in Boston Scient...( TAXUS IV study demonstrates long-te...),Health

TAXUS IV study demonstrates long-term safety and efficacy of TAXUS drug-

eluting stent compared to bare-metal stent

NATICK, Mass., and WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) today announced five-year and final follow- up data from its TAXUS IV clinical trial. The benefits previously reported at years one through four -- in patients who received a TAXUS(R) Express(TM) Paclitaxel-Eluting Coronary Stent compared to patients who received a bare- metal stent (BMS) -- were maintained at five years. Stephen G. Ellis, M.D., the trial's Co-Principal Investigator and Director of the Cleveland Clinic's Sones Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories, presented the TAXUS IV five-year results at the annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) symposium in Washington, D.C.

"The five-year TAXUS IV follow-up study of the TAXUS Express Stent clearly demonstrates long-term safety, with similar rates of death, myocardial infarction, and stent thrombosis across a broad cross section of patients and lesions and with no new cases of stent thrombosis between years four and five," said Gregg W. Stone, M.D., of Columbia University Medical Center and the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, New York, the Principal Investigator for the TAXUS IV clinical trial. "The TAXUS IV data combined with the TAXUS II results presented in September clearly add to the growing body of evidence reinforcing the long-term safety of TAXUS paclitaxel-eluting stents."

The results of TAXUS IV reaffirm the long-term safety of the TAXUS Stent as demonstrated by an excellent five-year safety profile. Rates of all death (10.0% vs. 11.2%, p=0.49), cardiac death (4.4% vs. 4.5%, p=0.85
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