Patients With Blood Clots Inside Heart Stents Face Recurrence

By Michelle Fay Cortez

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- One in six heart patients who develop a blood clot inside the device used to open their clogged arteries are likely to develop another blockage, a study found.

Patients who had a previous heart attack or a blockage more than a year after the device, called a stent, was implanted had a greater than twofold higher risk of another occurrence, according to a study presented today at the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting in Chicago. A clot can choke off the blood supply, causing heart attack, stroke or death.

U.S. sales of drug-coated stents from Boston Scientific Corp. and Johnson & Johnson plunged 37 percent in 2007 after they were linked to the condition known as late stent thrombosis and a major study found aggressive drug therapy may work as well as the implanted devices. The new trial showed treating the blockage with another stent raised the risk of a repeat episode more than fourfold.

The investigators examined 437 consecutive patients who experienced a stent thrombosis at St. Antonius Hospital in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands, between January 2004 and February 2007. Almost 17 percent experienced another episode, including 12 patients with three clots and one with four.