Blood Clots In Stent Patients To Be Studied By Health Firms
October 16th, 2008 laurie
The Wall Street Journal reports that eight medical companies are joining forces to launch a $100 million study to determine how best to protect heart patients from rare but dangerous clots after they are treated with artery-opening devices called stents. The four-year, 20,000-patient study is intended to determine whether stent patients can safely go off aggressive blood-thinning treatment after one year, or if they’d be better to remain on the medication for at least 2½ years after getting a stent.
Current guidelines call for patients who get a drug-coated stent to remain on the medicine for at least a year. But concern over blood clots forming in the devices well after a year has left doctors and patients in a quandary over how long treatment should be prescribed.
Drug-coated stents are designed to prevent scar tissue from reclogging the artery later and thus reduce the need for patients to return for a repeat operation. But such stents hadn’t been studied in those having heart attacks, who make up about 10% of stent patients.
