[Coronary stents. From a simple idea to a medical high-tech device]

Coronary stents were introduced in clinical cardiology in the middle of the 1980s, as balloon angioplasty was associated with a high incidence of acute vessel closure and restenosis.

However, primarily designed to counteract elastic recoil after angioplasty, initial results were complicated by acute and subacute stent thrombosis. With the introduction of drugs effectively inhibiting platelet aggregation like ticlopidine and clopidogrel, stent could exhibit its superiority in comparison to angioplasty. Although the incidence of restenosis could be decreased significantly by coronary stents, restenosis remained a major drawback of this interventional technique. Several modifications of stent design and stent material had been tested, but without a real breakthrough. The introduction of active stent coating with anti-inflammatory and antiproliferative drugs marks a milestone in the development of this technology. With this approach the restenosis problem could be, even though not solved, but essentially mitigated. Current developments address bioabsorbable materials to make stents compatible with new upcoming noninvasive imaging techniques.

Introduced 20 years ago as a simple wire mesh, modified by new designs and materials, and coated by highly effective drugs, coronary stents have advanced to medical high-tech devices in interventional cardiology.