Friday 3 November 2017

Which stent should I have?

On the topic of coronary artery stenting for angina, patients are now given the choice of a number of forms of stent, or at least their cardiologist is. These include angioplasty without stent, angioplasty with a bare metal stent (as shown in the picture), drug eluting stents (where  a chemical is impregnated into the stent, and over the next 5 years is slowly released into the surrounding artery,) and more recently bioabsorbable stents (which are similar to the drug eluting stents, but the stent itself like resorbable absorbable stitches, dissolves, so that after a year or 2, is has vanished). These latter bioabsorbable stents are a great deal more expensive, and a recent study has shown that they in fact are less effective than the drug eluting stents. (click here for study)

So if your cardiologist suggest that you should have a stent, which one should you request?
Bare  mental stents are very good, but they do have a significant incidence of recurrence in the 1st couple of years.
Drug eluting stents these are undoubtedly the best and should be used whenever possible.
Bioabsorbable stents will almost certainly be taken off the market.

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