Raymond Gibbons, MD (Mayo Clinic, Pres/American Heart Association), said COURAGE trial findings suggest that "hundreds of thousands of Americans with stable angina who received coronary stents did not need them."
Martin B. Leon, MD, violated academic ethics of the highest order by leaking results of the COURAGE trial prematurely, denigrating its design, discrediting its results, to protect pocketbooks of interventional cardiologists and stent industry. Sanctions
FDA says drug-eluting stents are safe & effective in stable patients with single-vessel disease; even so, they'll have to take Plavix (clopidogrel) & aspirin for a year or more...up to a lifetime. High-risk patients with multivessel disease are much more
A major limitation of percutaneous therapy (PCI) for the treatment of chronic total occlusions (CTOs) is the inability to cross with a wire. We report successful recanalization of a CTO using Intraluminal Wire (tm)...
Evaluation of Cypher Sirolimus Eluting Stent in Patients Undergoing Elective Revascularization of Nonacute Total Coronary Occlusions (TCO). Cordis Corp. Columbia Presbyterian, NYC. 2006-2011. (Not currently recruiting)
Articles on the various questions, problems, and controversies currently plaguing drug-eluting stents: deployment techniques, stent qualities, antiplatelet therapies, and etiologies of post-DES thrombosis and restenosis.
We must optimize stent deployment & maintain a registry of how well (or poorly) we use drug-eluting stents. Instead of asking “Which stent?” or “How much anti-platelet therapy?” we must ask “How effectively are we deploying our stents?”