<<I think that radiation will still be needed since I have less confidence in the drug coatings.>>
In the Febr. Issue of Clinical Cardiology: 24, 119-126 (2001)there is an article by Antonis S. Manolis,M.D..FACC,FESC from Patras Univ. in Greece entitled:
Reduced Incidence of Clinical Restenosis with Newer Generation Stents, Stent Oversizing, and High-Pressure Deployment.
He presented a series of 244 consecutive patients (203 men and 41 women) 83 patients had only PTCA and 161 patients also received stents.Quite a different variety, (J&J, NIR, ACS, AVE, Inflow-Goldflex, Crossflex, Wictor, Josten, Seaquence, and Wallstent
There was 18 +/- 14 months of follow-up and he concluded that with the newer generation stents and a consistent approach of stent oversizing and high-pressure stent deployment the procedural success was 99%, there was 0% of stent thrombosis and the rate of clinical restenosis was low at 7%(The PTCA group had 28.4% restenosis with p=0.001)
By the way, there is a meeting of the Cardiovascular Radiation Therapy and Restenosis Forum on Febr.5-7 in Washington, D.C.
Bernard |
