Stent offers hope to those with Coronary Artery Disease

University Medical Center cardiologist Chowdhury Ahsan, M.D., Ph.D. was the first physician in Nevada to use the new PROMUS™ Everolimus-Eluting Coronary Stent from Boston Scientific. PROMUS is a private-labeled XIENCE™ V Everolimus-Eluting Coronary Stent System manufactured by Abbott and distributed by Boston Scientific. It was approved for use by the FDA on July 2, 2008.

Approximately one in five people will develop coronary artery disease before the age of 60, and an estimated 300,000 people will die suddenly from undiagnosed coronary artery disease. The PROMUS stent is in a new class of drug-coated heart stents made from cobalt chromium. Cobalt chromium allows for thinner metal struts that make the stent more flexible and easier for doctors to implant.

“Bringing the most advanced medical technologies to our community directly supports our mission to provide outstanding patient care,” said Ahsan, director of cardiac catheterization lab at UMC. “Early adoption of the PROMUS stent reinforces our commitment to deliver advanced treatment to patients in Southern Nevada.”

Stents are tiny mesh wire tubes implanted to reinforce the blood vessel wall and keep the vessel open. Unfortunately in many cases tissue grows around the stent causing the blood vessel to re-narrow. This is known as restenosis and requires another procedure to correct.

Researchers found a way to coat the stents with a drug that is released to the tissue surrounding the stent. The drug significantly slows the cell growth that occurs as part of the healing process after the stent is implanted.  Diabetics are 50 percent more likely to develop restenosis with a traditional bare metal coronary stent. That rate drops to close to 10 percent with drug-coated stents.

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