ABSTRACT
The concept of delivering — or eluting — a drug from a stent over a period of time to treat the problem of in-stent restenosis following stent implantion is an attractive strategy. Local drug delivery for cardiovascular disease, prior to the advent of stents, was restricted to catheter-based delivery. These technologies were limited by the compounds available for catheter-based delivery, dwell time of the delivery catheter and length of residence time of these compounds in the vessel wall following completion of the delivery. Stent-based drug delivery offers a platform for not only maintaining compounds directly at the site of injury or disease and providing prolonged delivery, but it also allows for the delivery of hydrophobic compounds which cannot be easily delivered via conventional methods.
