Significant advancements in percutaneous treatment of coronary artery disease have been achieved with the introduction of bare metal stents. They have two major drawbacks: acute/subacute stent thrombosis, successfully managed with antiplatelet therapy immediately after stent implantation; and in-stent restenosis, prevention of which has been achieved with the development of drug-eluting stents....

Coronary artery stents revolutionized the practice of interventional cardiology after they were first introduced in the mid-1980s. Since then, there have been significant developments in their design, the most notable of which has been the introduction of drug-eluting stents. This paper reviews the benefits, risks, and current status of Food and Drug Administration-approved drug-eluting stents.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Drug-eluting stents are useful for preventing restenosis, but the patho-physiological processes involved in the proliferative response after implantation are still not known in detail. The aim of this study is to compare the coronary vascular histomorphometry after implanting drug-eluting stents and bare metal stents in a swine model. METHODS Sixty stents were rand...

Drug-eluting stents (DES) were introduced in interventional practice more than 10 years ago and rapidly replaced bare-metal stents (BMS) for treatment of coronary artery disease because of their superior capability to reduce the need for restenosis-driven repeat intervention. Soon, it became obvious that besides optimal stenting technique, dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT), which means the combi...

Stent fracture is an uncommon complication of drug-eluting stent implantation, but it has a clinical significance because of its potential association with adverse cardiac events such as in-stent restenosis, target lesion revascularization, and stent thrombosis. Multiple stent fractures account for a small proportion, but they may lead to more serious complications. Newer generation drug-elutin...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES We performed a pooled analysis based on patient-level data from the TITAX-AMI and BASE-ACS trials to evaluate the outcome of titanium-nitride-oxide-coated bioactive stents vs drug-eluting stents in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction at 2-year follow-up. METHODS The TITAX-AMI trial compared bioactive stents with paclitaxel-eluting stents in 425...

There is histological evidence that drug-eluting stents are associated with delayed endothelialization and a persistent inflammatory state. Moreover, clusters of inflammatory cells have been observed on luminal surfaces by scanning electron microscopy. With the aim of quantifying this inflammatory response, we implanted one bare-metal stent and two drug-eluting stents containing different doses...

BACKGROUND There is evidence that endothelial coverage of drug-eluting stents might be delayed or absent, a risk factor for late thrombotic events. We studied the effects of different drug-polymer-device iterations on endothelium-dependent coronary vasomotion. Systemic markers of endothelial inflammation were correlated with coronary vasomotor changes. METHODS AND RESULTS Patients with paclit...

Previous research from our group has demonstrated arsenic trioxide eluting stents significantly reduced neointimal area and thickness compared with bare metal stents. In the present study, the anti-inflammatory effects of arsenic trioxide in vitro and arsenic trioxide eluting stents in a porcine coronary model have been explored. Sixty-five pigs underwent placement of 139 oversized stents in th...