DRUG-ELUTING STENTS MAY CAUSE MORE THAN 2,000 DEATHS PER YEAR, RESEARCHERS SAY

An editorial on the American College of Cardiology (ACC) website supports recent studies showing that drug-eluting stents may pose a greater risk to patients than previously thought.

The editorial comes after the World Congress of Cardiology, where experts said the success of drug-eluting stents "comes at a price." Patients using the devices could be trading restenosis -- a rarely life-threatening condition where the coronary artery re-narrows -- for thrombosis, which may lead to heart attack or death, experts said.

The researchers in the ACC editorial estimated that, in the absence of a definitive clinical trial, "using [drug-eluting stents] in 80 percent out of 1 million percutaneous coronary intervention cases would translate into 2,160 excess deaths per year attributable to late stent thrombosis" in the U.S. -- "a risk far worse than that of tainted spinach no matter how profound the reduction in restenosis."

The editorial can be viewed at www.cardiosource.com/editorials/index.asp?EdID=87 (http://www.cardiosource.com/editorials/index.asp?EdID=87).