dissolvable stents for wa heart patients

Sounds familiar somehow?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/dissolvable-stents-for-wa-heart-patients/story-e6frf7kf-1226445026608

Dissolvable stents for WA heart patients

Rebecca Le May
From: AAP
August 07, 2012 5:10PM

A NEW device to widen blocked coronary arteries has been inserted for the first time in public hospital patients in Western Australia.
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A heart patient received a dissolvable stent at Fremantle Hospital on Monday and a second followed on Tuesday.

Interventional cardiologist Michael Nguyen says the dissolvable stents are made of the same synthetic material used in dissolvable stitches, and naturally broke down into carbon dioxide and water after about two years.

Traditional, rigid metal stents could "clot off" years after being inserted, he said, because the body detected a foreign object and tried to "heal" it with clotting.

"Unfortunately, when that happens, it can block off the artery completely," Dr Nguyen told AAP.

"That's why these patients need to be on blood thinning agents."

After the dissolvable stents opened up an arterial blockage and function returned to normal, the devices did not need to remain there, reducing a patient's reliance on blood thinning medication, Dr Nguyen said.

Cardiologists were still assessing which patients were suitable for the new stents, but were currently targeting patients where there was a concern about the long-term use of blood thinning agents, he said.

"Very young patients with very local disease in the arteries is another category that we're thinking would be good for this stent," he said.

"With young people, their arteries are still very functional. A vessel ... can dilate or narrow with stress and so forth, and exercise.

"So we want to restore that function."

The device would be rolled out at 10 hospitals around Australia in the next two to three months, Dr Nguyen said.

Results from initial trials were positive, he said.