By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical WriterSat Mar 24, 10:44 PM ET
A new crop of experimental heart stents have passed some key safety and effectiveness tests and may one day offer alternatives to the controversial stents currently used to keep unclogged arteries open, doctors reported Saturday.
One is designed to dissolve after doing its job, leaving nothing behind to trigger blood clots — a worry with the most popular stents sold now. Another attracts special cells to help the artery heal. A third is super-thin and uses a novel drug to keep scar tissue from reblocking the vessel.
All are seeking a slice of the $6 billion market for these tiny mesh scaffolds, which are placed in arteries during angioplasty, an artery-clearing procedure that more than a million Americans have each year.
Its popularity has faded with news that the drug-coated stents used in most of these procedures can raise the risk of blood clots many months later.
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