Brachytherapy has been used for several years and is gaining widespread acceptance. Physicians commonly recommend the procedure in patients who are at high risk for developing restenosis. However, the long term effects of radiation therapy are still unknown. In a recent study, researchers used beta radiation to prevent further blockages in the stents of 476 patients who were treated with angioplasty for clogged coronary vessels, Mohan Suntharalingam, MD, of the University of Maryland in Baltimore announced at an October meeting of the American Society of Therapeutic Radiation Oncology in Boston.
Stents are wire cylinders that hold open blood vessels.
They are inserted during 70 to 80 percent of all angioplasty procedures. After 8 months, only 14 percent of the patients treated with radiation, called brachytherapy, had blockages greater than 50 percent, compared to 41 percent of the angioplasty patients who did not receive radiation. The radiation patients had an 8 percent lower rate of heart attacks or other cardiac events. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of brachytherapy to prevent restenosis in coronary stents. Suntharalingam and his colleagues are analyzing data from another large, national study of 1,500 patients.