Bridgeport Hospital Participates In Heart Stent Study

The Heart Institute at Bridgeport Hospital has announced its participation in the e-Cypher Registry, the first study designed to evaluate the impact of stent-placement technique on patients who receive the new Cypher sirolimus-eluting coronary stent.

Sponsored by Cordis Corporation, the Johnson & Johnson company that manufactures and markets the new drug-eluting stent, the study will include approximately 1,500 patients at 50 hospitals across the country.

The goal of the study, according to Dr Mitchell Driesman, director of interventional cardiology at Bridgeport Hospital, is to identify specific aspects of stent-placement technique that will further enhance the positive results recorded to date in patients who have received the Cypher stent.

“Approximately 1,200 coronary artery stenting procedures are performed each year at Bridgeport Hospital,” says Dr Driesman. “And, most of them are done with the new Cypher stent.”

The Cypher stent, which is approved for the treatment of previously untreated coronary artery blockages, was developed to address the problem of in-stent restenosis, or reblockage, which occurs in as many as 15–30 percent of patients who receive a bare metal stent. The Cypher stent slowly releases the drug sirolimus into the vessel lining to prevent scar tissue growth, a leading cause of reblockage in treated arteries. In clinical trials, the Cypher stent reduced the occurrence of restenosis by more than 90 percent versus a bare metal stent.

“Bridgeport Hospital is committed to providing our patients with the most innovative treatments medical science has to offer,” Dr Driesman says. “We are pleased to be among the 50 hospitals nationwide selected to participate in this important study to further enhance the care of our patients.”

The Cypher stent, which received US approval for marketing in April 2003, has been used to treat more than 400,000 patients in the United States to date, and 550,000 patients worldwide. With clinical follow-up out to four years, Cypher, the only drug-eluting stent using the drug sirolimus, has the longest-term data available of any drug-eluting stent.