May 18, 2007 — According to a report published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal and posted on UPI, the number of coronary stents implanted in patients at U.S. hospitals dropped more than 15 percent in April compared with the number of such procedures performed in April 2006. Stenting procedures at 140 hospitals totaled about 71,200, according to a poll done by the Toronto-based Millennium Research Group, the newspaper reported.
The steep decline in stent use may have been prompted by data from the COURAGE study presented at ACC in March.
According to the Millenium survey, use of the drug-eluting stents now accounts for 69.7 percent as of April, down from 90 percent of all stenting procedures as of last June, WSJ said.
Boston Scientific markets the Taxus drug-eluting stent, Johnson & Johnson sells the Cypher brand stent, while Abbott said it would file for U.S. approval of the Xience drug-eluting stent later this year.
July 02, 2024 
