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A newly developed stent is better at preventing tissue from building up inside it and works just as well as a previous version at treating blood vessel lesions, Angiotech Pharmaceuticals has said.
The firm carried out two clinical trials with Boston Scientific and said the Taxus Element stent was as good as a previous Boston Scientific stent called Taxus Express.
Stents are tubes made of mesh-metal which are placed inside blood vessels after fatty plaque has been cleared by a surgeon; drugs are used to cover some stents, such as the Taxus Express, to stop any scar tissue causing a further blockage.
One trial compared drug-coated Taxus Element with a drug-coated Taxus Express in 1,262 patients who had new lesions in their blood vessels. Angiotech said the Element failed in 5.6% of patients and Express failed in 6.1% of patients. The two stents’ safety are similar, it said.
Taxus Element, which also stopped tissue building up in patients more efficiently than a bare metal Taxus Express, has still to be approved in the US but Angiotech said the stent should be given the green light by the EU.
Copyright Press Association 2010
Angiotech
