Balloon-Expandable Intraarterial Stents: Effect of Antithrombotic Medication on Thrombus Formation

Growing interest in the research of percutaneous intravascular metallic stents is evidenced by the rapidly increasing number of investigations on the subject [1–6]. Sigwart et al. [7] first demonstrated successful clinical use of intracoronary stents. However, recent reports indicate thrombosis of the stent after placement in 39% of the series by Puel et al. [8] and 11% in the series by Sigwart et al. [9]. This underscores the fact that thrombogenicity may be one of the most challenging problems for the safe use of intravascular stents.