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Stents Move Up to the Carotid

Just as drug-eluting stents prevent heart attacks by maintaining the patency of coronary arteries, so do carotid artery stents prevent strokes by keeping carotid arteries open. Carotid artery stenting, like coronary stenting, is a minimally invasive, percutaneous procedure and both procedures use similar kinds of devices. The large cardiovascular device companies are all in clinical trials with carotid artery stents, but none is expected on the US market before 2005. Still, the market for carotids isn't likely to be nearly as big as that of coronary stents.

If drug-eluting stents are the Next Big Thing in interventional clinical practice, then carotid stents may be Another Big Thing. Even as their primary focus remains developing drug-eluting stents, the large cardiovascular device companies are progressing with clinical trials of carotid artery stents. The application of stents in the carotid artery may prove to be as effective in preventing strokes as coronary stents have been (and their progeny, drug-eluting stents, appear to be) at preventing heart attacks. For coronary stents, this is accomplished by maintaining the patency of coronary arteries. In the case of carotid artery stents, the key is to keep the carotid artery, the primary blood vessel leading to the brain, free of obstructions caused largely by atherosclerotic plaque build-up.

Carotid artery and coronary artery stenting share some things in common—they are minimally invasive, percutaneous procedures using similar kinds of...

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