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Drug-Eluting Stent Overview

Drug-eluting stents (a.k.a. "coated" or "medicated" stents) were developed to solve one of the biggest problems of percutaneous interventional coronary treatment: restenosis -- reblocking or reclosure of the artery. (Read more...)

NewsCenter: Reports and Features
Breaking news, original reporting and links to research about drug-eluting stents:

•	All Drug-Eluting Stents News
•	DES 'n' DAPT: The OPTIMIZE Trial and Drug-Eluting Stents
•	Medtronic's Resolute® Drug-Eluting Stent Matches Market-Leading Rival in Large Head-To-Head Study
•	Stent News from the ACC.10: Monday
•	Endeavor Stent: 5-Year Data Show Safety and Efficacy Advantage
•	FDA Alert: Plavix May Be Less Effective in Some Patients with Genetic Variation (Mar 12)
•	Three Months of Plavix After Stent: When Less May Be More (Mar 11)
•	Plavix After Stents: How Long? (Feb 19)
•	Stents Downgraded by Wall Street Journal: If Only It Were That Simple (Feb 16)
•	Bill Clinton Has Angioplasty, Receives Two Stents (Feb 11)
•	Drug-Eluting Stents Safe and Effective for Treatment of In-Stent Restenosis (Feb 10)
•	Approvals and Acquisitions: Medtronic Continues Expanding Beyond the Coronaries (Jan 26)
•	Abbott's XIENCE V� Drug-Eluting Stent Superior to Boston Scientific's TAXUS� at One Year (Sep 23)
•	Endeavor� Stent Reduced Risk of Heart Attack/Cardiac Death by 48% at Three Years Compared to Taxus� Stent in Large Study (Sep 21)
•	Drug-Eluting Stent Summit Announced for TCT 2009 Meeting in San Francisco (Sep 15)
•	Drug-Eluting Stents: Looking Ahead (Sep 15)
•	Drug-Eluting Stents: Looking Back (Aug 22)
•	FALSE: Stents Denied to Patients Over 59 (Aug 19)
•	Medtronic Awarded $57 Million in Patent Dispute with AGA Medical Corp. (Aug 6)
•	Medtronic and Abbott Laboratories Resolve Global Vascular Patent Disputes (Jul 27)
•	Stents: An Insider's Look -- OCT and Stent Strut Coverage (July 5)
•	Endeavor Drug-Eluting Stent Is First to Receive CE Mark for Treating Acute Coronary Syndrome (May 19)
•	Medtronic's Endeavor® Drug-Eluting Coronary Stent Approved in Japan (Mar 30)
•	ZEST: 3 Stents Go Head-to-Head-to-Head (Mar 29)

Late Stent Thrombosis

Reports presented at the 2006 World Congress of Cardiology and to a special FDA panel have called attention to potential problems with drug-eluting stents. What does this mean for patients? (Read more...)

Answers to Top Ten Questions About Stents & Angioplasty vs. Drug Therapy

The COURAGE Trial was an important study, but reports about it have caused confusion for patients and physicians.
(Read more...)

With thousands of postings, Angioplasty.Org's Forum is an active patient community with discussions on drug-eluting stents, antiplatelet therapy and more.

Angioplasty.Org Interview with:
Fausto Feres, MD, PhD

Dr. Feres' 3,000 patient OPTIMIZE trial is measuring patient outcomes after only 3 months of dual antiplatelet therapy when used with Medtronic's Endeavor ZES. If borne out, these finding could have important implications for cost-savings as well as patient safety.

Q: What are the implications of a trial like this? If the hypothesis is proven what are the implications for patient outcomes, safety and cost savings?
Dr. Feres: If you prove that twelve months is superior to three months, we need to forget about giving three months of clopidogrel to patients. But if we find they are similar, twelve months vs. three months, then we can save money -- if patients don't need to take Plavix for an extra nine months, that's a lot of money, and they can avoid some bleeding complications, I'd say at least between 3 and 5% of severe bleeding complications. The patients that need surgery, abdominal surgery, or even for eye surgery, we have a problem with those patients because they say, "Oh I cannot stop Plavix and I need to have surgery". Even if they go to the dentist, they say they cannot stop Plavix, so that's a very good implication. (Read entire interview...)

Also read the Angioplasty.Org Interview with: Eric J. Topol, MD
		In this interview, Dr. Topol, Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, discusses his work in genomic studies of patients' antiplatelet responsiveness and its implications in determining the optimal duration of dual antiplatelet therapy.

David E. Kandzari, MD
		Dr. Kandzari is Director of Interventional Cardiology Research at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California. His career in interventional cardiology has been unique in that he has had the opportunity to be involved in drug-eluting stent issues from multiple perspectives.

Gregg W. Stone, MD
		Dr. Stone is Director of Cardiovascular Research and Education at New York-Presbyterian Hospital / Columbia University Medical Center. He discusses the basics of drug-eluting stents, from an interview done just after the Taxus DES was first approved.

External Reference Material and Bibliographic Links
A selected listing of journal articles and web links about stents and related topics. These are provided as a service by Angioplasty.Org, which is not responsible for the content found on any external sites. (Coming soon.)

Visit Medtronic's Website for More Information on Stents and Other Pioneering Therapies
Medtronic, Inc., headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the global leader in medical technology � alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life for millions of people around the world.

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