Pill Prevents Heart Artery Reclosure
Fights Common Stent Procedure Complication
Sept. 30, 2002 -- An experimental drug may help prevent one of the most common complications following heart procedures to open up clogged arteries. Animal tests show the drug significantly reduced renarrowing of the arteries after a procedure called stenting, in which tiny mesh tubes called stents are used to prop up clogged arteries.
The study appears in today's rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Restenosis, or renarrowing of the arteries, occurs when excess scar-like tissue builds up in the affected artery after angioplasty and stent placement to prop open a clogged heart artery. Although drug-coated stents have shown promise reducing this side effect, they have not yet been approved for use in the U.S.
In this study, researchers used an oral drug that's similar to the one used in the drug-coated stents, which targets the body's immune system and helps prevent tissue build-up in the artery. The drug, everolimus, is also being studied as a treatment to help prevent organ rejection in transplant patients.
In tests with laboratory rabbits that underwent stenting, the study found the drug reduced the growth of scar tissue in the stent by 40% to 46%, depending on the dosage used. The animals received the drug one to three days before the stenting procedure and up to 28 days after the surgery.
The rabbits that received a higher dose of the drug experienced weight loss and a loss of appetite, but this side effect was not found in the lower dose group.
"The advantage of using an oral drug rather than a coated stent is that it gives us more control. With a stent, we don't know when the drug finishes working. With an oral drug we can give it for a short time, and then monitor its effect," says study author Renu Virmani, MD, chair of the department of cardiovascular pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., in a news release.
In an editorial that accompanies the study, David P. Faxon, MD, cardiology section chief at the University of Chicago, says that an oral medication that prevents restenosis may also reduce the need for stents altogether in some patients.
But Faxon cautions that it remains to be seen whether the drug will work in humans and that previous attempts at preventing restenosis with pills have been unsuccessful.
Pill Prevents Heart Artery Reclosure
Fights Common Stent Procedure Complication
Sept. 30, 2002 -- An experimental drug may help prevent one of the most common complications following heart procedures to open up clogged arteries. Animal tests show the drug significantly reduced renarrowing of the arteries after a procedure called stenting, in which tiny mesh tubes called stents are used to prop up clogged arteries.
The study appears in today's rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Restenosis, or renarrowing of the arteries, occurs when excess scar-like tissue builds up in the affected artery after angioplasty and stent placement to prop open a clogged heart artery. Although drug-coated stents have shown promise reducing this side effect, they have not yet been approved for use in the U.S.
In this study, researchers used an oral drug that's similar to the one used in the drug-coated stents, which targets the body's immune system and helps prevent tissue build-up in the artery. The drug, everolimus, is also being studied as a treatment to help prevent organ rejection in transplant patients.
In tests with laboratory rabbits that underwent stenting, the study found the drug reduced the growth of scar tissue in the stent by 40% to 46%, depending on the dosage used. The animals received the drug one to three days before the stenting procedure and up to 28 days after the surgery.
The rabbits that received a higher dose of the drug experienced weight loss and a loss of appetite, but this side effect was not found in the lower dose group.
"The advantage of using an oral drug rather than a coated stent is that it gives us more control. With a stent, we don't know when the drug finishes working. With an oral drug we can give it for a short time, and then monitor its effect," says study author Renu Virmani, MD, chair of the department of cardiovascular pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., in a news release.
In an editorial that accompanies the study, David P. Faxon, MD, cardiology section chief at the University of Chicago, says that an oral medication that prevents restenosis may also reduce the need for stents altogether in some patients.
But Faxon cautions that it remains to be seen whether the drug will work in humans and that previous attempts at preventing restenosis with pills have been unsuccessful.