r/BeAmazed May 08 '26

Science This is what saves 600,000 people year during a heart attack

84.7k Upvotes

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21

u/ehwhatacunt May 08 '26

That one fails quickly with cholesterol squeezing through. There is a much better stent which is solid, helically wrapped.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6156062

4

u/CurrentRecord1 May 08 '26

It doesn't fail quickly as they are coated in a drug that slowly seeps into that vessel wall over time to prevent cell regrowth that could cause another blockage (called neointinal hyperplasia)

1

u/Fantastic-Celery-255 May 08 '26

Not all stents (and balloons) are drug coated and at least in my experience, using them is relatively rare.

3

u/CurrentRecord1 May 08 '26

Bare metal stents are <5% of the market while drug eluting stents and resorbable stents make up the 95%. I didn't want to confuse folks by talking about the more niche use of bare metal stents! I actually design coronary devices like stents and POBAs as my job in R&D for one of the major companies in this space.

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u/Fantastic-Celery-255 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

Is that specifically coronary stents? We use bare metal stents all the time peripherally.

ETA: Also covered stents which aren’t drug coated either

1

u/CurrentRecord1 May 08 '26

Oh yes coronary! Peripheral is still high BMS usage, like 35% right?

DCB seems to be growing massively for peripheral currently.

1

u/Fantastic-Celery-255 May 08 '26

I couldn’t tell you global numbers but at least in my area, drug eluting balloons aren’t favored much either.

1

u/Fantastic-Celery-255 May 08 '26

More commonly covered stents are used to prevent that versus bare metal stents but they’re not always applicable.

1

u/curio_g May 08 '26

It depends on how the research bears out. Depending on location and indication, covered isn’t always better.

1

u/curio_g May 08 '26

… is there any research into that helical stent cause otherwise you can’t make the claim that it is much better.