Prevention of Arterial Restenosis by Rapamycin and Mycophenolate Mofetil: A New Role for Novel Immunosuppressants in the Prevention of Post-Balloon Angioplasty Restenosis?

Angioplasty is a minimally invasive method for widening both stenotic coronary and peripheral atherosclerotic vessels. Restenosis is a late complication that affects almost 50% of vessels undergoing angioplasty within six months after the procedure (Nobuyoshi et al. 1988) and is characterized by vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation in the area of balloon catheter-induced injury. There has been a concerted effort to identify effective therapy for preventing or limiting this complication (Handley 1995), but despite a number of successful pharmacologic interventions in a variety of animal models of vascular injury, none of the agents (with perhaps the exception of angiopeptin (Eriksen et al. 1995)) has proven to be effective in clinical trials.