Coronary angioplasty: Back to the future

Abstract

Puel and Sigwart, in 1986, deployed the first coronary stent to act as a scaffold preventing vessel closure reducing the incidence of angiographic restenosis. The first stents were bare metal stents. The first drug-eluting stents to be approved were coated with paclitaxel or sirolimus. Since these stents came with a lot of promise but also with risk of thrombosis, the next step was biodegradable stents. These stents are expected to degrade into nontoxic byproducts. They came with a lot of fanfare but are now being viewed with caution because of initial poor results. We do not know what the future holds.

Keywords

• Coronary angiography
• coronary angioplasty
• history of cardiology