INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES The angiographic and clinical efficacy of polymer-free sirolimus-eluting stents vs polymer-based paclitaxel-eluting stents remain a matter of debate. We sought to investigate angiographic and clinical measures of efficacy of polymer-free sirolimus-eluting stents vs polymer-based paclitaxel-eluting stents. METHODS Patient data from the randomized intracoronary stent...

PURPOSE To better understand the performance of four commercially available neurovascular stents in intracranial aneurysm embolization, the stents were compared in terms of their basic morphological and mechanical properties. MATERIALS AND METHODS Four different types of stents that are currently being used for cerebral aneurysm embolization were prepared (two stents per type). Two were laser...

BACKGROUND Recent reports suggest that off-label use of drug-eluting stents is associated with an increased incidence of adverse events. Whether the use of bare-metal stents would yield different results is unknown. METHODS We analyzed data from 6551 patients in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Dynamic Registry according to whether they were treated with drug-eluting stents or ba...

PURPOSE Copious studies exist regarding the use of stents in pediatric pyeloplasty. Most surgeons use either no stent, an internal (Double-J®) stent or an external transanastomotic pyeloureteral stent. We propose the first known study to compare all 3 methods using a decision tree model that incorporates success rates, complications, patient discomfort and costs. MATERIALS AND METHODS We crea...

BACKGROUND Recent studies have questioned the safety of drug-eluting stents because of a higher incidence of late stent thrombosis, raising the possibility that drug-eluting stents may be associated with an increased mortality. The effect of drug-eluting stents on mortality in African-Americans is unknown. METHODS We evaluated 628 African-American patients (354 patients treated with drug-elut...

BACKGROUND The long-term effects of treatment with sirolimus-eluting stents, as compared with bare-metal stents, have not been established. METHODS We performed an analysis of individual data on 4958 patients enrolled in 14 randomized trials comparing sirolimus-eluting stents with bare-metal stents (mean follow-up interval, 12.1 to 58.9 months). The primary end point was death from any cause....

AIMS We performed a propensity score matched analysis to explore whether TiNOX stents are superior to paclitaxel- (PES) and sirolimus-eluting stents (SES) in routine clinical practice. METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 1,607 patients undergoing implantation of SES, PES or TiNOX stents were prospectively entered into a stent registry and followed up for three years. Using propensity score matchin...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS Currently available silicone and metallic stents for tracheal stenosis are associated with problems of granulations, mucus trapping, and difficult removals. Our aim was to develop a novel bioabsorbable tracheal stent with mitomycin C (MMC) drug elution to circumvent such problems. STUDY DESIGN A randomized animal study. METHODS Twenty-five rabbits were randomly assigne...

BACKGROUND Fast post-implantation stent endothelialization is desirable for theoretically reducing the possibility of stent thrombosis. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the extent of sirolimus-eluting stent strut endothelialization (delivered from the luminal and abluminal aspects or abluminal aspect only) in the iliac arteries of rabbits. METHODS The iliac arteries of 10 rabbits were implanted with f...

The undisputed superiority of stents over conventional balloon angioplasty has resulted in a plethora of stents in clinical use. Recent data, however, have indicated not all stent models are the same. Nuances in stent design and construction have impacted significantly on the immediate and long-term clinical outcome. Among the stainless steel stents, those with multicellular or tubular designs ...