Drug-Eluting Stents: What Is the Real Risk? - CME Teaching Brief - MedPage Today
GAITHERSBURG, Md., Jan. 11 -- The issues surrounding the safety of drug-eluting coronary stents remain white hot, with extremes views on the future of the little mesh devices.
The core question is whether drug-eluting stents will emerge, in the end, as a great boon to coronary-disease patients or as an out-of-control lethal insult of major magnitude.
The two approved devices, Cypher (sirolimus-eluting) and Taxus (paclitaxel-eluting), dodged several bullets late last year when an FDA advisory safety panel agreed that the stents are safe when used according to label directions Yet that use represents a minority of the millions of drug-eluting stents implanted in Americans.
Posted by gruwell at January 12, 2007 5:23 AM | TrackBack