Now stents without polymers, no possibility post angioplasty problems

• Polymer is a type of plastic, which can cause swelling of the artery, risk of stent restenosis
• These problems will not happen in new generation stents
• Dr. Abhishek Mohanty, Senior Interventional cardiologist, Hyderabad

Hyderabad. In India, 4.8 million people are diagnosed with cardiovascular disease every year. In these patients, about one million people undergo angioplasty due to coronary artery disease. In angioplasty, the patient's heart blockage is opened without bypass surgery, but due to the stent being implanted in this procedure, the patient may have to face some problems later, such as swelling of the heart arteries, clotting or restenosis of the stent. These problems are likely due to the element (metal or polymer) the stent is made of. But now new generation stents are being made from different metals, which will not cause problems after angioplasty.

New stent made of cobalt chromium; it is plastic free

The new generation stents are made of cobalt chromium metal instead of polymer. These are also drug-eluting stents that release 80 percent of the drug within 28 days of implantation and in these stents, a drug called “Probucol” has been used, which will act as a polymer but will not cause problems like that. Newer metal stents are more visible after implantation in imaging-guided angioplasty such as OCT or IVUS and are more flexible than earlier polymers. New generation stents are very beneficial for diabetic patients, who are prone to re-stenosis.

These problems occur in old generation stents

Till now, only stents made of polymer (a type of metal or plastic), were used to implant the patient. Having a simple bare metal stent implant has a 15 to 30 percent risk of their re-blockage. In such a situation, the patient could have to face the problem of artery blockage again. At the same time, even after implanting a polymer-made drug-eluting stent, there is a 5% to 10 percent chance of it closing again because this plastic remains always in the patient's artery, due to which swelling in the artery or plastic deposits in the artery is possible due to wear of the polymer. Problems such as stent re-stenosis, thrombogenicity, and stent thrombosis can surround the patient when it accumulates.