Stents???

pmanton

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Perhaps one of you medical professionals will answer a question for me. On the news last night, there was a piece about one of our AZ hospitals developing a wonderful new stent that would dissolve after a period of time.

My understanding is that a stent is installed to open a blocked vessel. If this is correct, why then would you want the stent to dissolve after time?

This is of interest because my wife is still with me thanks to stents in her heart.

Thanks much.

Paul
Salome, AZ
 
There is a process, called restenosis, where cells can grow over the stent and reblock the artery. It may be that without the stent material there the cells will be less likely to undergo this behavior, though the limits of my knowledge end right there.
 
stents can clot or degrade ... like a cast a few weeks would be optimal
 
Before stents, we did just balloon angioplasty. Pop a balloon through the narrowing in the artery and that was it. Sometimes it stayed open. Sometimes it didn't.

The original stents were bare metal stents. When stents are deployed initially they cause micro-tears in the inside lining of the vessel. In the short term, they use blood thinners to keep a clot from forming. Long term wise the intima, the innermost lining of the blood vessel, would grow up and over the stent causing "late loss" or restenosis of the stented vessel.

Then came drug eluting stents. They had a polymer coating that was drug coated and directly applied this drug to the surface that was stented. This modified the healing process at the stent/vessel interface and in the course of applying the drug slowly over its intended time (weeks?) helped minimize overgrowth and restenosis.

The bioabsorbable platform has been the next goal, with the idea being the stent is used to pop the stenosis/plaque open, the body heals and then the stent is completely absorbed before the intima can begin to overgrow into the stent struts.

Keep in mind the majority of the work of the stent with regards to opening, and keeping the vessel open, is done within days to weeks.. Having it in for years (lifetime) afterwards is what leads to late loss.
 
Some of the ones now actually collapse using origami.

If you mean they collapse after implantation I'd be interested in seeing the documentation on that. Having stent struts not in contact with the intima was considered bad form for interventional cardiologists, and I was led to believe having stuff hanging out in the blood stream led to clots forming on it. Which is bad for blood flow in an artery.

If you mean being collapsed/collapsible around the deflated deployment balloon prior to insertion, that I could believe.
 
Perhaps one of you medical professionals will answer a question for me. On the news last night, there was a piece about one of our AZ hospitals developing a wonderful new stent that would dissolve after a period of time.

My understanding is that a stent is installed to open a blocked vessel. If this is correct, why then would you want the stent to dissolve after time?

This is of interest because my wife is still with me thanks to stents in her heart.

Thanks much.

Paul
Salome, AZ
It seems you have a very personal reason for asking. Have you asked the doctor that attended her? seems like a logical thing to do verses the Internet. I only suggest this as one gets so many off the wall answers on simple aviation questions !
 
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