Christine Webb, Your Health And Fitness
Cardiologists at Orlando Regional Medical Center are using new drug-coated stents to clear blocked arteries and restore blood flow to heart.
PROMUS ---the newest drug-coated stent from Boston Scientific Corporation -- is being used at ORMC to treat heart disease. It has recently approved by the FDA.
A stent is a small metal mesh tube that acts as a scaffold to provide support inside your coronary artery.
When stents are put in, the body will react to that by forming tissue around the outside of the stents. The new stents have a chemical that inhibits that growth and keeps the stent open so blood can flow and doctors don't have to go back in later and open it up.
"It's very gratifying how I can do that when people come back like that," said Dr. Robert Dalton, a cardiologist at ORMC.
Doctors say the older "bare" metal stents did not have those chemicals.
Patients using the stents showed relief of their symptoms and no chest pain along with more durable results.
The PROMUS stent is in a new class of drug-coated heart stents made from cobalt chromium. Cobalt chromium allows for thinner metal struts that make the stent more flexible and easier for doctors to implant.
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