While the appropriate duration of anti-platlet or anti-coagulant therepy is currently being investicated (believed to be 6 months, a year or longer), it appears that the general theory is that it can eventually be stopped. Currently, it appears that it can be stopped sooner with bare metal stents than it can with drug eluding stents. What I would like to better understand is, why can it ever be stopped with either stent type. What happens to reduce the chance of clot formation after a year say, that allows Plavix to be discontinued? Is it that tissue grows over the stent? If so, then why go through the trouble of making drug eluding stents, which attempt to fight said tissue growth? Also, if tissue growth is bad, because it causes the vessel to close, then what happens when the drugs on the drug coated stents are used up? Do the drugs just delay the inevitable? If so, how long is the delay?
2007-03-25
11:08:56
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2 answers
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asked by
cato___
7