Trinity
Medical Center recently became the first hospital in Alabama to use a newly
approved medical device to open narrowed coronary arteries, even in heart
disease patients with diabetes. The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved this new device, the
Resolute Integrity Drug-Eluting Stent (DES) from Medtronic.
The
Resolute Integrity DES is the first and only heart stent to be FDA approved for
treating patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) who also have diabetes. Remarkably, the new device has been shown in
a global series of clinical studies to yield consistently strong performance in
CAD patients with and without diabetes.
Approximately one-third of all patients, an estimated 300,000 people in
the United States alone, who receive a stent each year have diabetes.
Research
shows that the nearly 26 million people in the United States who have diabetes
are at a greater risk for developing CAD, and millions of U.S. patients with
both diabetes and CAD face an increased rate of heart attacks an strokes than
patients without diabetes.
"The
Resolute Integrity Drug-Eluting Stent represents a significant advance in the
interventional treatment of coronary artery disease," says Stephen Bakir, MD,
cardiologist on staff at Trinity Medical Center. "The device's indication for CAD patients
with diabetes in particular really distinguishes it from the alternatives."
Caused
by a buidup of fatty deposits, or plaque, in coronary arteries, CAD is the most
common type of heart disease and the leading cause of death in the United
States, killing almost half a million Americans each year. Research shows that people with diabetes have
a two- to three-fold increased risk for CAD and two- to four-fold higher CAD
morbidity and mortality rates.
Historically, it's been difficult to treat CAD patients with diabetes
because they tend to have smaller coronary arteries and persistently elevated
blood-sugar levels, which can increase the rate of procedural complications and
long-term safety risks.
