Over one million percutaneous coronary interventions will be performed in the US this year and over 85% of these will utilize coronary stents. Coronary stents are thin metallic scaffolds that are inserted in a coronary artery to keep it open and maintain blood flow for the heart muscle to operate properly.

In spite of its popularity, coronary stenting has a considerable rate of failure. A common cause of failure after stenting is restenosis, where scar formation leads to renarrowing of the artery lumen and prevents blood flow to the heart. Restenosis occurs in 7 to 50% of patients within the first year of treatment and necessitates a repeat procedure or surgery. Another major problem associated with stenting is thrombosis. Although thrombosis occurs less frequently than restenosis, the fatality rate is 45%, which makes it major concern.

Recently introduced drug-eluting stents (DES) have proven successful at reducing the incidence of restenosis. However, the drugs used on these devices delay healing of the artery and regeneration of the endothelial lining (the inner lining of the blood vessel). This lining provides critical protection against thrombosis and also regulates smooth muscle cell growth and scar formation to keep restenosis at bay. Due to delayed healing, patients treated with DES are required to take dual anti-platelet therapy for 3 to12 months compared to 1 month for bare metal stents. This poses a substantial danger for patients that are resistant to anti-platelet drugs or patients that may need to undergo surgery within a year after receiving DES treatment.

Allvivo Vascular (AVI) has developed a next generation coating that provides a solution to this limitation of DES. By interrupting the inflammatory processes that lead to restenosis at a very early stage, AVI’s coating prevents narrowing of the artery while providing an environment that supports healing of the protective endothelial layer. This is expected to increase the safety and efficacy of coated stents while eliminating the need to extend costly dual anti-platelet therapy.