New stents as effective for women as men

The benefits of the TAXUS coronary artery stent, which slowly releases a drug to prevent re-clogging of the artery, appear to apply to women as well as men, researchers report.

Senior investigator Dr. Gregg W. Stone told Reuters Health that "women receiving the drug-eluting TAXUS stent had similar clinical ... outcomes as men. This is important, and confirms that this breakthrough technology is beneficial in all patients with significant coronary artery disease."

Stone, at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, New York, and colleagues note in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that previous trials have shown that the TAXUS stents are more effective overall than bare metal stents in preventing the problem of arteries becoming blocked again after the stents are inserted into narrowed coronary arteries.

To determine if gender might have influenced the outcome, the researchers compared the results for the 187 women and 475 men who were assigned to the TAXUS stent with those of the 180 women and 472 men who were assigned to the bare-metal stent.

Re-blockage rates in women who were given the active stent were similar to those of men in this group (8.6 percent versus 7.6 percent).

Comparing women to women, being given an active stent rather than a bare metal stent led to a significant reduction in re-clogging rates at 9 months (8.6 percent versus 29.2 percent).

In a statement, Stone concluded that "this drug-eluting stent should be considered a new standard of care in women as well as in men."

SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Cardiology, April 19, 2005.