J&J STENT FAVORED FOR REPEAT PROCEDURES
Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) drug-coated Cypher heart stent may be better than Boston Scientific's Taxus for repeat procedures to unclog some arteries, according to a study in the Jan. 12 Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study, conducted in Germany and funded by the Heart Center, included 300 patients who had tissue growth inside a bare-metal stent that choked off blood flow. Patients were given a Cypher or Taxus stent or treated with angioplasty in which a balloon is threaded into a blocked artery and expanded to restore blood flow.
Six months after treatment, 45 percent of angioplasty patients' arteries showed signs of blockages, called restenosis, compared with 22 percent of Taxus patients and 14 percent of Cypher patients. After a year, 19 percent of Taxus patients needed additional treatment, compared with 8 percent of Cypher patients, the study found.