More interesting news from the American Heart Association’s annual meeting: a new drug-coated stent, called Taxus, made by Boston Scientific, appears to reduce the incidence of heart attack and restenosis as compared to a group of patients with traditional bare-metal stents:
No patients with Taxus had a heart attack between the nine-month and 12-month intervals. Seven patients with traditional bare-metal stents had heart attacks. Overall, about 7.9 percent of patients receiving Taxus had restenosis, or significant reclogging of their artery, a year after the device was implanted, compared with 26.6 percent implanted with bare metal stents.
Boston Scientific is looking for marketing advantages for Taxus when it reaches the U.S. market, expected late in the first quarter of 2004. Taxus is already taking market share from Cypher [a similar device made by Johnson & Johnson] in Europe, where both devices are available, Boston Scientific has said. The drug-coated stents, which offer a significant advantage over bare metal stents because they emit clot-busting drugs while in the patient’s body, are expected to generate billions of dollars in annual sales.
Update (November 18, 2003): Some problems have been reported with the Cypher stent. See this article in the New York Times for more.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Iam 47 years old and just had 2 Taxus stents placed in Feb.Iam I to expect major problems from this