Study may allay drug-coated stent concerns

Patients who get the leading drug-coated stents to prop open coronary arteries rather than bare-metal stents run no higher risk of death, according to a new report by a multinational team of doctors.

That finding is consistent with others and may help allay safety concerns ignited last year by reports of potentially deadly clots forming in the leading drug-coated stents: the Taxus, made by Boston Scientific, and the Cypher, by Johnson & Johnson.

But the new analysis, to be published today in The Lancet, a British medical journal, also includes some less clear findings that could be troubling for Boston Scientific, the market leader.

The data suggested that patients who received the Taxus stent were slightly more likely to suffer heart attacks than those who received the Cypher.

The analysis also confirmed the slightly elevated risk, compared with bare metal stents, of potentially deadly clots forming in the Taxus more than 30 days after implantation. The researchers said the data did not show that Cypher patients ran such a risk.

Moreover, fewer Cypher patients needed follow-up procedures to deal with a recurrence of their coronary blockage.

The new study combines and reanalyzes the latest available data from 38 previously reported clinical trials.

Taxus and Cypher are the best-selling drug-coated stents in most overseas markets and the only ones approved for sale in the United States, where Taxus controls about 54 percent of the market.