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September
15,
2009 -- 8:50pm EDT
Drug-Eluting Stents: Looking Ahead
 As
a companion to my last post "Drug-Eluting
Stents: Looking Back", this is all about next week and the TCT
(Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics) meeting being held this
year in San Francisco. It's the largest gathering of interventionalists
in the U.S. and probably the world. There are literally hundreds of
presentations, live case demonstrations, symposia, etc. -- but during
the first two days (September 21-22) the TCT will be hosting the "DES
Summit" -- more than 16 hours of presentations -- over 100 separate
short talks on every aspect of drug-eluting stents, from safety to
antiplatelet therapy to biodegradable stents to drug-eluting balloons
and the use of these devices in patients from stable to STEMI (heart
attack). You can read the complete schedule here.
The top cardiologists in the world will be presenting
at the DES Summit, so anyone who sits through these sessions will
come away with a rich understanding of the current status of these
devices.
We'll try to bring our readers the highlights of
these sessions. But some of the major issues that will be aired
are:
- safety (what is the current thinking about late stent
thrombosis, its prevalence and causes);
- antiplatelet therapy (how long
should
it be required, are some patients resistant to it, what are
the proper dosages); indications (is it safe and effective in treating
heart attack, left main disease, diabetics);
- differences
in stents (are all DES alike, or do some act differently in terms
of healing and efficacy);
- and finally, what does the future hold (biodegradable
polymers that elute the drug, completely biodegradable
stents,
stents with no polymers, balloons with no stents).
More next week....
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