Dissolving heart stent for coronary diseases
The use of a coronary stent that dissolves over time while in the body has been approved by the FDA. This stent is a device that, like biodegradable stitches and absorbable bone screws, melts away when placed in patients who have cardiovascular diseases.
Abbott has its FDA stamp with the Abbott Vascular’s Absorb GT1 Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffold System, the first coronary artery stent ever created for absorption by the human body and a bold leap in advanced medical technology.
This new type of stent reabsorbs completely into the system in three years after implantation, once it’s done helping arteries in healing. The expectation is that the artery can then return to its natural curvature allowing it to constrict and dilate naturally.
The scaffold of the stent is made from polylactic acid which is a type of polymer. The device performed on the same level as a drug-coated metallic stent, also from Abbott, called Xience in a human clinical trial involving some 2,000 patients.
The trials found a lightly higher rate of thrombosis in patients who had received Absorb – a fact that has made some cardiologists hesitant. But an FDA advisory panel endorsed the stent by a majority, paving the way for approval.
Coronary heart disease kills over 370,000 Americans each year, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Coronary stents are only used on some 850,000 patients annually in the U.S. Abbott has not releases a price for the absorbable stents, but did say that these will be “only modestly higher” than their metal stents.
报道链接: http://www.immortal.org/27784/dissolving-heart-stent-coronary-diseases-gets-fda-approval/
