Drug-eluting stents
Drug-eluting stents are coated with medicine to prevent a coronary artery from narrowing again after angioplasty.
Stents are small, wire-mesh tubes that are inserted during angioplasty into a blocked section of the coronary artery to open the artery and improve blood flow. See a picture of a stent
. Drug-eluting stents are used more often than bare-metal stents.
All stents have a risk that scar tissue will form and narrow the artery again. This scar tissue can block blood flow. But drug-eluting stents are coated with drugs that prevent scar tissue from growing into the artery. Drug-eluting stents may lower the chance that you will need a second procedure (angioplasty or surgery) to open the artery again.
But experts do not know yet how safe the drug-eluting stents are over the long term or how well they work over the long term.
Whether your doctor chooses to give you a drug-eluting stent will depend in part on your age and any other risk factors (such as diabetes) that make it more likely that your artery will narrow again. In some cases, a second catheterization or coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) may be needed at a later time. When recommending treatment for you, your doctor will also consider your overall health and how well you would be able to handle a second surgery.
| Author: | Robin Parks, MS | Last Updated: May 5, 2009 |
| Medical Review: | Caroline S. Rhoads, MD - Internal Medicine John A. McPherson, MD, FACC, FSCAI - Cardiology | |
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