Heart Disease Health Center

New Heart Stent Looks Good in Study

Stent May Promote Faster Healing continued...

The Xience stent also reduced reclogging of the treated arteries compared with the standard drug-coated stent (4.7% vs. 8.9%), Stone says.

The findings should satisfy regulatory hurdles set by the FDA for approving the device, Stone says.

In addition to Taxus, the Cypher drug-eluting stent, from Cordis Corp., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, is also approved in the U.S.

Abbott, which makes Xience, funded the research. The company is expected to submit the data to the FDA by the end of the year.

Spencer B. King III, MD, head of interventional cardiology at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, says that if approved, Xience will offer another option for treating the more than 1 million Americans who undergo angioplasty each year.

That said, it won’t make the Taxus or Cypher stents obsolete, he says.

“All three stents are highly effective,” he tells WebMD. “It’s always good to have options.”