The second, multinational study looked at the use of angioplasty with stents for people having a heart attack - now common practice, but not well studied. About 900 heart attack patients were randomly assigned to emergency angioplasty either with or without a stent. After six months, people who had received a stent experienced less pain, had clearer arteries, and were less likely to need bypass surgery or another angioplasty than those who hadn't received a stent. But again, stent's didn't appear to cut rates of death, another heart attack, or disabling stroke. Stents have demonstrated they can cut the risk of newly cleared arteries closing up again.
Stents can prevent much of the recoil by acting like little scaffolds.
But scarring may still occur, causing restensois in about 10 to 20 percent of angiplasty patients who receive stents. It's pretty clear that stents are here to stay. Engineers continue to refine their properties, such as flexibility and strenght. These advances will continue to perfect this already useful device and lead to stenting in more people and even better outcomes. If you've had an angioplasty to clear a blocked artery in the last year or two, it's likely you were given more than relief from chest pain and lowered risk of heart attack.