CardioExchange Archive

March 22nd, 2012

Large Meta-Analysis Finds Very Low Thrombosis Rates for Xience Stent

Larry Husten, PHD

A large new meta-analysis published in the Lancet provides the best evidence yet that the cobalt-chromium everolimus eluting (CoCr-EES) stents (Xience and Promus) have a significantly lower rate of stent thrombosis than bare-metal stents (BMS) and other drug-eluting stents (DES). Tullio Palmerini and colleagues analyzed data from 49 randomized trials comparing different stents in more than 50,000 patients. Odds ratios for 1-year […]

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March 5th, 2012

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Weekly Review: Week of March 5th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include goal-oriented patient care, stenting vs. medical therapy, and patient satisfaction and mortality.

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February 27th, 2012

Meta-Analysis Finds No Advantages for PCI Over Medical Therapy in Stable Patients

Larry Husten, PHD

Patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) today do no better with stents than with medical therapy, according to a new meta-analysis published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Kathleen Stergiopoulos and David Brown identified 8 trials with 7,229 patients comparing stents to medical therapy in which stents were used in the majority of PCI cases. ”By limiting the […]

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January 23rd, 2012

Drug-Eluting vs. Bare-Metal Stents, Using Instrumental Variable Analysis

David Cohen, MD MSc

David J. Cohen, the principal investigator of an observational PCI registry study of drug-eluting versus bare-metal stents, sheds light on a risk-adjustment technique called “instrumental variable analysis.” CardioExchange welcomes your thoughts on the value of this method and on the study it was used to elucidate. The Study Using data from a prospective observational PCI registry, researchers […]

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November 14th, 2011

What’s Up, Interventionally?

Eiman Jahangir, MD

Martin Leon surveys the expansion of the interventionalist’s world

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September 14th, 2011

Meta-Analysis Finds Reduction in Stent Thrombosis with Everolimus-Eluting Stents

Larry Husten, PHD

Stent thrombosis and other complications are less likely to occur when an everolimus-eluting stent is used, according to a large new meta-analysis.

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July 29th, 2011

Less May Be More, But Stents Are Neither Good Nor Bad

Larry Husten, PHD

A few days ago, the distinguished healthcare writer Shannon Brownlee wrote a provocative blog post  about the overuse of stents. A key piece of evidence that she used was a paper co-authored by Grace Lin and Rita Redberg, in which focus groups of cardiologists cheerfully admitted that they would give stents to hypothetical patients who were, according to the current guidelines, not […]

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June 15th, 2011

Johnson & Johnson Steps Out of the Stent Market

Larry Husten, PHD

Johnson & Johnson announced today that it is exiting the stent business. The company will discontinue development of its Nevo sirolimus-eluting stent and will end sales of its Cypher family of stents by the end of the year. The company was the manufacturer of both the first stent, the Palmaz-Schatz stent, in the 1990s and […]

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May 25th, 2011

FDA Approves Xience Nano for Small Vessels

Larry Husten, PHD

The FDA has approved the Xience Nano everolimus-eluting stent, Abbott has announced. The stent is based on the same platform as the popular Xience V stent, and can be used in vessels as small as 2.25 mm. The approval was based on results from the SPIRIT Small Vessel clinical trial. The rate of target lesion […]

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May 24th, 2011

Stent BioWars: Erode or Absorb?

Richard A. Lange, MD, MBA and L. David Hillis, MD

In January 2011, we blogged about ABSORB, a  bioresorbable stent, when it received CE approval for use in Europe. Drug-eluting stents (DES) are composed of a metal scaffold that is coated with a polymer containing an antiproliferative agent , which is released gradually over the weeks to months after the stent is inserted.  The durable polymer residue has […]

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