Safety of Stents Up for Debate

October 2006

Evidence indicating that the overuse of heart stents has led to thousands of heart attacks and deaths each year has prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to hold hearings about whether to implement new safety guidelines. Stents are small metal sleeves put in arteries to keep blood flowing.

The increase in heart attacks and deaths may be the result of stents being used in minor cases of clogged arteries where drugs should have been prescribed, or the use of drug-coated stents when simple metal stents could have worked just the same. Bare-metal stents used to repair clogged arteries usually leads to arteries becoming clogged again and the procedure repeated. Drug-coated stents cut in half the frequency of an artery becoming clogged again, but have the potential to cause fatal blood clots months or years down the road.

At an upcoming conference, experts will argue that delayed clotting is more commonly associated with drug-coated stents than with metal stents or bypass surgery. Heart attacks and death rates are similar among the three procedures.

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