Coronary stents are an important treatment modality
Know how they work.
Watch the video below to know
how coronary stents work
Heart stents are small, wire, mesh tubes that help widen a clogged artery and restore adequate blood flow to the heart. During the procedure, the cardiologist will place the stent over a thin, long tube with a balloon tip called a catheter and insert it into an artery in your groin or arm.
Once the stent reaches the clogged artery, your doctor will inflate the balloon to expand the stent. When the stent reachesthe desired size to widen the clogged artery, your doctor will deflate and remove the balloon.
The stent will stay in place permanently to help prop open the artery and decrease its chance of narrowing again. Over time, the innerlining of the artery will grow over the surface of the stent, making it a permanent part of your artery.
Bare-Metal Stents
Bare-metal stents are tiny wire mesh tubes that help widen a clogged artery but are not coated with a polymer or drugs to help prevent re-blockage of theartery. This type of stent may be used in patients who are allergic to either the polymer or drugs used in drug-eluting stents.
Drug-Eluting Stents
A drug-eluting stent is a bare-metal stent that has been coated with a polymer that gradually releases a drug over the time when re-blockage is most likely to happen. This helps reduce the chance of the artery being blocked again. There are two types of drug-eluting stents:
- Permanent Polymer Drug-Eluting Stent: In this type of stent, the polymer stays on the stent permanently, even after all the drug has been released.
- Bioabsorbable Polymer Drug-Eluting Stent: In this type of stent, the polymer and drug coating are fully absorbed by the body shortly after the drug has been fully released. This promotes better healing by eliminating long-term polymer exposure.
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