A coronary stent is a stent placed in a coronary artery to treat coronary heart disease as part of a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).
Similar stents and procedures are used in non-coronary vessels eg in the legs in peripheral artery disease.
The first type were bare-metal stents. More recent are drug-eluting stents.
In development are stents with biocompatible surface coatings which do not elute drugs, and also absorbabl...
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A coronary stent is a stent placed in a coronary artery to treat coronary heart disease as part of a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).
Similar stents and procedures are used in non-coronary vessels eg in the legs in peripheral artery disease.
The first type were bare-metal stents. More recent are drug-eluting stents.
In development are stents with biocompatible surface coatings which do not elute drugs, and also absorbable stents (metal or polymer).
Treating a blocked ("stenosed") coronary artery with a stent follows the same steps as other angioplasty procedures with a few important differences. The interventional cardiologist uses angiography to assess the location and estimate the size of the blockage ("lesion") by injecting a contrast medium through the guide catheter and viewing the flow of blood through the downstream coronary arteries. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) may be used to assess the lesion's thickness and hardness ("calcification"). The...
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