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Drug-coated stents are safe to use and
effective for all heart attack patients and they can cut death rates for heart
attack victims, a new study finds.
A stent is a tiny tube placed into an
artery or blood vessel to keep it open. They release drugs that help prevent
blood vessels from reclogging after surgery to open them up.
The 7,217-patient study suggests that
drug-coated stents are safer compared to older bare-metal stents. The death
rate, incidence of second heart attacks, and need for new artery-opening
procedures were lower for those getting drug-coated stents, according to the
report in the Sept. 25 issue of the New
England Journal of Medicine.
The report found that 10.7 percent people
with drug-coated stents versions died within two years, compared with 12.8
percent who had bare-metal devices. Moreover, patients with drug-coated stents
also suffered fewer repeat heart attacks and were a third less likely to need a
second operation to reopen a clogged artery, according to the research.
The study was funded by the Massachusetts
Department of Public Health. Dr. Laura Mauri, an assistant professor of
medicine at Harvard
Medical School
and an interventional cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital is the
lead-author of the study.
This study is the last in a series of
studies which showed that patients given drug-coated stents to prop open
clogged heart arteries were unlikely to die or need ulterior procedure in case
of complications compared to patients that have older, bare-metal devices.
For patients with ST-segment elevation – a
kind of heart attack with a specific electrocardiogram signature – the two-year
risk of death was 8.5% with drug-coated stents and 11.6% with bare-metal
stents. For heart attack victims without ST-segment elevation, the two-year
risk of death was 12.8% with drug-coated stents, compared to 15.6% with
bare-metal stents.
In a nine month study, Swiss researchers
led by professor Stephan Windecker of Bern University Hospita compared the
results of the next generation drug-coated stents with conventional drug-coated
stents in a study involving 1,700 patients. They found no significant
difference in the performance of BioMatrix – a new drug-coated stent made by
Singapore-based Biosensors International Group Ltd. – compared to a standard
drug-eluting stent releasing sirolimus. Patients with chronic stable coronary
artery disease or acute coronary syndromes received either of the two stents.
At the end of the study, researchers found the number of deaths, heart attacks
and repeat interventions were equivalent in both groups of patients.
The most recent drug-coated stent which
received FDA’s approval is the Boston Scientific Corp.’s new Taxus drug-coated
stent. The Food and Drug Administration approved the Boston Scientific Corp.’s
new Taxus drug-coated stent, Boston Scientific Corp. announced Thursday. The
Taxus Express2 stent is the only stent on the market approved for use in
vessels as small as 2.25 millimeters, the manufacturer said. The stent is also
approved to treat the recurrence of a narrowing artery in patients who have a
bare-metal stent. Taxus stents compete with Johnson & Johnson’s Cypher
stent, Abbott Laboratories Inc.'s Xience V and Medtronic Inc.'s Endeavor
drug-coated stents.
Researchers say the studies “establish the
non-inferiority” of the newer drug-coated stents.
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