Study: Drug-Coated Stents Perform Well

Drug-coated stents did not increase the risk of death or another heart attack when used to treat heart attack patients, a U.S. study found.

MarketWatch reported Sunday the study compared drug-coated stents to bare-metal stents. The study found that drug-coated stents performed better in preventing a re-narrowing of the cardiac arteries.

Results of the study were announced Sunday at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention’s annual conference in Chicago.

The study included two-year, risk-adjusted data from more than 7,200 patients who were treated with stents in Massachusetts hospitals to prop open heart arteries following a heart attack, MarketWatch reported.

Dr. Laura Mauri, an interventional cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and lead investigator of the study, said the results were reassuring.

I would feel comfortable considering drug-eluting stents on the basis of these results — with the caveats that treated patients must be able to take anti-platelet therapy and that we definitely want to see even longer-term term follow up, Mauri said in a statement.