Bioabsorbable stents to revolutionize treatment of artery disease

LONDON -- Coronary artery disease and peripheral artery disease are global health issues that affect millions of lives each year, and bioabsorbable stents are due to become the next step in treatment once the medical world has provided enough clinical data and prices are lowered, states a new report* by research and consulting firm GlobalData.

Stent technology has evolved over the years to address the challenges of treating arterial diseases, and the new report looks at bioabsorbable stents, which offer temporary scaffolding to the vessel and then disappear over time, leaving behind a healed artery. This report offers an overview of coronary and peripheral artery disease, including epidemiology, etiology, symptoms, diagnosis, pathology and treatment guidelines.It includes annualized bioabsorbable stent market revenue, annual cost of disease and BAS adoption pattern data from 2009-2011 and forecast for seven years to 2018.

Bioabsorbable stents are in their infancy and there is a long road ahead before widespread adoption into clinical practice is reached, but GlobalData believes the technology holds the potential to revolutionize patient treatment.

“Coronary and peripheral artery diseases affect over 7 million and 8 million people above the age of 65 years respectively, and will continue to increase in the future,” said GlobalData’s analyst for Cardiovascular Devices, Priya Madhavan, M.S.

Although traditional stents improve patient prognosis in comparison to invasive cardiac surgeries, complications such as restenosis and thrombosis remain a concern, and there is a demand from physicians to reduce the need for dual anti-platelet therapy, required when implanting bare metal and drug-eluting stents. Fully degradable and absorbable stents tackle all these concerns, and could potentially ensure quality long-term results for the patient.

Although bioabsorbable stents offer several advantages, GlobalData predicts that adoption of this technology will be slow in the US and Europe, as a lack of long-term clinical data and high prices remain barriers to public and professional acceptance.

Madhavan states: “Bioabsorbable stent technology is novel and exciting, however, the technology is in the early stages of development and has a long road ahead before it becomes a standard of care in clinical practice. As bioabsorbable stents receive FDA approval, the US will acquire market share and steadily become the largest market through 2018 and beyond.”

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