Stent Blood Clots have recurrence tendency

A recent study has found that the patients who have once been struck by stent related blood clot have a high probability of second clot and even more.

The risk increases even more if an emergency procedure to treat a stent related clot uses additional stent to treat it. Thus it should be avoided said the Dutch researchers.

The study was led by Dr. Jochem Wouter van Werkum of St. Antonius Hospital in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands.

The researchers collected the data of 437 patients who had various kinds of stents and had also been reported of suffering from stent thrombosis between January 2004 and February 2007.

Use of an additional stent during emergency treatment of a stent-related blood clot is a strong predictor of repeat stent thrombosis, the researchers said.

Stent thrombosis is the development of clots inside a stent. It can block blood flow to the heart and cause a heart attack or even death.

Heart stents are tiny wire mesh tubes metal devices that inserted into the coronary arteries after the angioplasty treatment. They help keep the blood vessels from reclogging after they have been cleared of blockages in the angioplasty procedure.

The researchers observed that the patients who had a second stent implanted during emergency treatment for their first clot were 4.2 times as likely as other patients to endure another episode of stent thrombosis.

They found that 16.9 percent of the patients had multiple episodes of stent thrombosis, out of which 61 patients had two episodes, 12 had three episodes and one had four episodes.

The researchers also found that the patients who previously suffered a heart attack had 2.6 times chances and the ones with a clot development long after stent implantation, known as late stent thrombosis, were 2.1 times as likely to suffer a repeat episode.

The study was released during the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention's annual conference.

Boston Scientific Corp., Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic Inc. are already selling coated stents in the U.S. and Abbott Laboratories Inc. (ABT) is also coming into the market soon.