A New Drug Coated Balloon Could Mean Fewer Permanent…

A New Drug Coated Balloon Could Mean Fewer Permanent Stents for Heart Patients, Here's What a Major Trial Found Drug eluting stents remain the default treatment for opening blocked coronary arteries, but they carry a small, persistent long term risk, roughly 2 to 4% annually, driven by issues like plaque buildup around the stent and rare late stent clots. A large new trial published in Circulation tested whether a novel drug coated balloon could achieve similar results while avoiding permanent stent placement in most patients. Researchers evaluated a sirolimus eluting balloon, a balloon coated with the drug sirolimus using biodegradable polymer microreservoirs, designed to release the drug gradually over 90 days, similar to how a permanent stent works, but without leaving a permanent metal structure behind. This multicentre trial, conducted across 62 sites in 12 countries, randomly assigned 3,323 patients with new coronary artery blockages to one of two strategies, treatment with the sirolimus eluting balloon with a stent placed only if genuinely necessary, or the standard approach of routinely placing a drug eluting stent for every patient. At one year, target vessel failure, a composite measure including cardiac death, heart attack related to the treated vessel, and need for repeat procedures