Drug Eluting Stents - A Follow Up

The eNews below was sent to the people who have been patients in the Office. I seem to have not expressed myself well because a number of responses felt that I was damning all the therapies mentioned.

I was not.

In fact, all the therapies mentioned have been proven to be of some worth to prevent primary and recurrent blood clots in the arteries. We have little experience with these new stents but wished to warn anyone that this new therapy with the coated stents seem to have such a major problem, they are no longer use in Europe.

It appears that these stents release the coating into the tissue around the stent, not just the central part of the stent, causing clotting in nearby blood vessels. The problem is with the stent and even though these excellent therapies were applied, they were not able to overcome the toxic substance eluted from the stent.

Lastly, I was asked if I was “now saying that l-arginine is not safe.” This link is to our Web Site that contains 39 pages of material that indicates l-arginine is unparalleled in preventing heart attacks and strokes.

The new drug eluting stents the world has been awaiting have run into unanticipated problems. Clots are occurring in the stents themselves and the collateral vessels that ordinarily would shunt blood around the larger clogged artery with the stent inside.

This appears to be an intrinsic flaw in the stent and has nothing to do with actions of the patient. The medications that have used to prevent clotting are failing everywhere. These medications are statins, l-arginine, aspirin, Plavix and most important of all aerobic exercise.

It appears that the exercise will bring out progenitor cells to line the arteries, especially the damaged areas where the stents were placed. This advice was never needed with the prior stents so no one is quite sure if it will do the job now.