A drug-eluting stint is also called a drug-coated stint. Like its cousin, the bare metal stint, it is a small lattice-shaped tube that is used to treat atherosclerosis, which is the build up of plaque on the inner walls of the coronary artery. Atherosclerosis narrows the path for oxygen-rich blood, which can cause stroke, heart attack, and sometimes death.
Unlike their cousin, the drug-eluding stint is more sophisticated. One of the disadvantages of the bare metal stint is that while it eliminated abrupt artery closure, in time a person’s body can grow scar tissue over the stint causing the artery to become clogged again. The drug-eluting stint is designed to inhibit the growth of scar tissue by releasing a special time-release medication.
In November 2006, The Cleveland Clinic reported that:
There is as much as a four- to five-fold increased relative risk for late thrombosis, or blood clot formation, in patients with drug-eluting stents compared to those with bare-metal stents, according to a Cleveland Clinic-led meta-analysis appearing in the December issue of the American Journal of Medicine. This is the first published analysis of its kind.
As with all medical treatment, there can be complications. Since November 2006, there has been an abundant amount of attorney advertisements about drug-eluting stints. While one should be aware of the information, you have to be careful about who, if anyone, you might get to represent you. In short. BEWARE and BE AWARE!
