Biotronik’s absorbable, drug eluting coronary stent only suffered 6.8% failure rate at three years, according to data presented at this week’s AHA Scientific Sessions.
Background
Coronary stent design has moved on apace since the first bare metal devices appeared a few decades ago. Indeed bare metal stents still constitute a significant number of implants. Drug coated, so-called drug-eluting stents have now also been around for a while and the newer generations include polymer “carriers” of the anti-proliferative drug, intended to fend off luminal narrowing. In recent years the polymer has been used as the structure of the stent, rendering it fully absorbable and still able to carry a drug. One other absorbable technology that caught our eye last year was the stent made from Magnesium, which theoretically conferred the strength benefits of a metallic stent, but was also degradable with time and could still carry a slow release drug.
This week has seen an update on the progress of the device, developed by heart device company Biotronik, at the American Heart Association meeting in Texas.
The new bioabsorbable magnesium stent, contrived to be called DREAMS (DRug Eluting Absorbable Metal Scaffold) is a drug-releasing tube that is reabsorbed over time, leaving behind a healthy vessel and reducing clotting that sometimes occurs 12-24 months after implantation of a traditional drug-coated stent.
It seems that three year data supports the idea that propping open clogged heart arteries with a “disappearing stent” has worked well, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2013.
Of 46 people implanted with the stent, the failure rate was 6.8 percent, with two patients requiring vessel-opening procedures and one suffering a heart attack during angiography one year after receiving the stent.
During the second year, no patient had a heart attack, heart-related death or developed a blood clot within the stent. Various imaging techniques confirmed that the stents were being absorbed as planned.
Source: Biotronik, American Heart Association
published: November 21, 2013 in: News