Drug coated stents for carotid intervention

Carotid endarterectomy has demonstrated its superiority over medical treatment of symptomatic as well as asymptomatic stenosis of the extracranial carotid artery. Although minimally invasive methods initially failed to produce similar results, stent implantation is becoming an alternative technique for stroke prophylaxis with technical advances, cerebral protection and careful patient selection. Even though restenosis does not seem to be a major limitation compared to coronary interventions, in-stent restenosis might occur more frequently with an increasing number of procedures performed and longer follow-up periods. Drug eluting stents have shown to attenuate this complication. Currently, no clinical data on drug eluting stents in carotid arteries are available. This article discusses the current literature on carotid artery stenting and the potential role of drug eluting stents in this field.