August 25, 2008 - A study conducted by the Cardiovascular Research Institute, Washington Hospital Center, Washington, D.C. indicates both drug-eluting stents (DES) and bare metal stents (BMS) for catheter-based treatment of saphenous vein graft (SVG) stenoses provide acceptably safe and efficacious results, but unlike the case in native coronary arteries, DES use does not reduce the frequency of the need for repeat revascularization.
The study is published in the Sept. 1 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.
Researchers said there is conflicting data regarding an advantage of DES over BMS, in SVG, so the study was undertaken to compare the efficacy of these modalities in that lesion subset. The DES group consisted of 138 cases with 183 lesions (sirolimus-eluting stents, n = 117; paclitaxel-eluting stents, n = 66) and the BMS group consisted of 344 cases with 478 lesions that were followed to one year.
At one year researchers said there was no significant superiority of DES over BMS with regard to hard end points (death and Q-wave myocardial infarction).
For more information: www.ajconline.org
April 17, 2024 
