The role of polymers in drug-eluting stents

Drug-eluting stents (DES) have proven to be highly beneficial in that they dramatically reduce the restenosis rates relative to bare metal stents (BmS). Local delivery of antirestenotic drugs from stent scaffolds is achieved through polymeric coatings. The polymers employed are either biostable or bioabsorbable, although, currently, most of the DES that are on the market are based on biostable polymers (Table 1). Such coatings have to be robust, offer effective drug-release kinetics and, above all, be biocompatible. The following article discusses the role played by polymers in providing these various DES attributes.