Drug-eluting stent

Drug-eluting stent
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An example of a drug-eluting stent. This is the TAXUS Express2 Paclitaxel-Eluting Coronary Stent System, which releases paclitaxel.A drug-eluting stent (DES) is a coronary stent (a scaffold) placed into narrowed, diseased coronary arteries that slowly releases a drug to block cell proliferation. This prevents fibrosis that, together with clots (thrombus), could otherwise block the stented artery, a process called restenosis. The stent is usually placed within the coronary artery by an Interventional cardiologist during an angioplasty procedure.

Drug-eluting stents in current clinical use were approved by the FDA after clinical trials showed they were statistically superior to bare-metal stents (BMS) for the treatment of native coronary artery narrowings, having lower rates of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) (usually defined as a composite clinical endpoint of death + myocardial infarction + repeat intervention because of restenosis) [1] [2] [3].