Risks of Drug-Coated Stents Divide Federal Review Panel

Growing evidence that deadly clots can form in drug-coated stents long after they are implanted does not mean that the risks of using the tiny devices to prop open the arteries in the heart outweigh the benefits, according to a panel of experts assembled last week to scrutinize the troubling data, according to a New York Times report.

But the group quickly agreed that the conclusion applied only to patients who had been involved in clinical trials of the two drug-coated stents now on the domestic market, Taxus, from Natick, MA-based Boston Scientific, and Cypher, from New Brunswick, NJ-based Johnson & Johnson. 

Such patients are generally healthier and more likely to have followed instructions about taking anticlotting drugs every day than the majority of patients currently receiving the stents. They make up well under half of the nearly one million Americans receiving stents annually.