Dissolvable Electronic Stent Can Monitor Blocked Arteries

ckwu writes: To restore blood flow in a narrowed or blocked artery, doctors can implant a metal stent to hold open the vessel. But over time, stents can cause inflammation and turbulent blood flow that lead to new blockages. Now, researchers have designed a stent carrying a suite of onboard electronic blood-flow and temperature sensors, drug delivery particles, data storage, and communication capabilities to detect and overcome these problems. The entire device is designed to dissolve as the artery heals. Medical device companies and cardiologists could look at this electronic stent as a kind of menu from which they can pick whatever components are most promising for treating certain kinds of cardiovascular disease, the researchers say.

Comments

My first thought

[viperidaenz]

My first thought is I hope the patients kidneys/liver don't have issues removing the dissolved electronic device from your blood, and the thing doesn't dislodge while still dissolving and damage a heart valve or cause some other blockage.

Re:My first thought

[Chewbacon]

Anti-platelet therapy is pretty effective at preventing restenosis. Risk factor modification further improves outcomes. Regardless, it beats the alternative. Look at it this way: you could die as a result of getting a stent (bare metal, drug-eluding), but you will die if you sit around and do nothing.

Re:My first thought

[The Grim Reefer]

Yeah, you best hope a stent doesn't cause a clot either, or you don't react poorly to the clot medication, or get yourself hurt while on it...

Restenosis is going to occur with any stent. The endothelial cells that keep plaque from accumulating are long gone by the time we can detect the issue. Until a vessel is 90% stenotic, it will effectively flow the same. You can postpone restenosis with drug eluting stents, which have been in use for a long time now. The elution distance is not very far, so this type of treatment does not cause systemic issues with blood not clotting like taking oral medications.

If the electronics in this stent can give flow information, then it also has the advantage of the patient not needing to go back into the Cath lab to have a catheter fished through their femoral artery to verify it. Which carries it's own set of risks. In the last few years, it has become possible to use CT to check this, but there is the radiation exposure, and a margin for error involved with that. Plus I don't know if that's become something insurance will pay for.

A way off?

[Chewbacon]

Just last year we were putting dissolving coronary stents in patients as a study in my lab. The researchers were highly selective about who was eligible based on a strict criteria. So I think putting electronics in them is even further off.

If all they have is a hammer

[transporter_ii]

It seems exercise, in an actual trial, worked as good (or better) than a stent:

November 16, 2011 (Orlando, Florida) — Adding a supervised exercise program to optimal medical care can improve walking performance better than performing stent revascularization in patients with symptomatic aortoiliac peripheral artery disease (PAD), a small randomized trial suggests [1].

So...why would we do stents if exercise works as good or even better?

"It's also notable that, at least in North America, stent procedures are reimbursed, [and] supervised exercise is not," Hirsch noted.

http://www.medscape.com/viewar...

Stent's don't improve outcome

[gurps_npc]

There are several studies that claim un-medicated stents don't improve life expectancy. They only reduce the need for future surgeries on that particular artery. http://www.medicinenet.com/scr...