Are Drug-Eluting Stents Lethal To Your Health?

Lee Coleman

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NBC reports today that millions of Americans could be at risk from some heart stents. The concern is devices called drug-eluting stents (DES). Approximately one million Americans a year have these implanted to treat coronary artery disease. $5 billion a year is generated by the two companies that make them. Doctors are starting to see patients with these type stents suffer from heart attacks that seem to be triggered by these. Because the drugs they let off keeps the cells from building up on the mesh wire, the wire sticks out in the artery giving the perfect place for a blood clot to form and block the artery causing a potentially fatal heart attack.

"Already, many cardiologists are cutting back from using the devices. Sales are dropping dramatically. The FDA panel may well recommend they not be used at all.
The big question now facing the FDA is: What should the estimated 4 million patients who already have a DES do?
The devices cannot be removed safely or easily. One preventive measure is to keep the patient on the blood-clotting medication Plavix for months or even indefinitely. But that medicine can cause severe bleeding, including a type of deadly stroke, and it costs more than $1,200 a year.
DES manufacturers Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson could end up rivaling Vioxx maker Merck as targets of lawsuits from people who suffer heart attacks."