Stent News and Research

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A stent is a small mesh tube that’s used to treat narrowed or weakened arteries in the body.

You may have a stent placed in an artery as part of a procedure called angioplasty (AN-jee-oh-plas-tee). Angioplasty can restore blood flow through narrowed or blocked arteries. Stents help prevent arteries from becoming narrowed or blocked again in the months or years after treatment with angioplasty. You may also have a stent placed in a weakened artery to improve blood flow and to help prevent the artery from bursting.

Stents are usually made of metal mesh, but sometimes they’re made of fabric. Fabric stents, also called stent grafts, are used in larger arteries. Some stents are coated with medicines that are slowly and continuously released into the artery. These medicines help prevent the artery from becoming blocked again.

ASTM International approves new surgical device standard

ASTM International’s medical and surgical devices committee (F04) has approved a new standard that provides details and considerations for planning and conducting a seal zone leakage assessment for stent grafts.

10 Oct 2026

Study finds gender differences in active medical treatment

New research from the University of St Andrews has found that women are less like than men with the same medical condition to be offered active management such as surgery, a stent or a strong painkiller.

16 Sep 2026

OCT imaging proves noninferior to intravascular ultrasound for complex heart stenting

Optical coherence tomography was noninferior to intravascular ultrasound to guide stenting in patients with left main coronary artery disease, according to results presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2026.

31 Aug 2026

Trial shows antiplatelet therapy needs personalization after stent implantation

Antiplatelet monotherapy reduced bleeding but dual therapy provided greater cardiovascular event protection in patients at high ischemic risk who had undergone stent implantation 12 months earlier.

29 Aug 2026

Trial findings do not support prasugrel monotherapy at the time of primary PCI for STEMI patients

Monotherapy using prasugrel failed to show noninferiority compared with potent antiplatelet therapy plus aspirin at the time of primary percutaneous coronary intervention for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction.

29 Aug 2026

LVIS stent-assisted coiling effectively treats wide-necked intracranial aneurysms

Intracranial aneurysms are weakened, bulging areas of cerebral arteries that can rupture, causing subarachnoid hemorrhage and, in turn, significant disability or death.

11 Aug 2026

Review outlines effective approaches to reduce recurrent hepatic encephalopathy

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a neurologic complication of advanced liver disease, causing impaired functioning, reduced quality of life (QOL), and increased hospitalisation and mortality.

31 Jul 2026

Understanding the role of cerebral venous flow in idiopathic intracranial hypertension

Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) is a rare and poorly understood neurological disorder that affects 1 to 20 people per 100,000-most often women of childbearing age.

22 Jul 2026

Micro and nanorobots could transform blood clot treatment

Newer tethered devices address some of these limitations: the "milli‑spinner" thrombectomy device applies compressive and shear loading to compact a clot to about 10% of its original volume, enabling ultrafast removal even in pulmonary and cerebral arteries (in vitro and porcine studies).

23 Jun 2026

New stent design could improve treatment of gastric leaks

Each year, about 250,000 Americans undergo sleeve gastrectomy, one of the most common weight-loss operations in the United States. For most patients, recovery is uneventful.

3 Jun 2026

Stent-assisted coiling and flow diverters effectively treat rare basilar artery cases

Basilar trunk artery aneurysms (BTAs) are among the rarest and most complex types of brain aneurysms, occurring in a critical vessel that supplies blood to the brainstem. Because of their location and low incidence, there has been limited research guiding how best to treat them, leaving neurosurgeons with few large datasets to inform clinical decisions.

15 May 2026

Real-world study examines cangrelor dosing for antiplatelet bridging after PCI

A multi-center retrospective cohort study examined how cangrelor has been used in real-world clinical practice around the time of surgery following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and described differences in outcomes seen with different dosing approaches.

24 Apr 2026

Drug-coated balloons reduce the need for permanent heart stents

A new sub-study suggests that using a sirolimus-eluting balloon (SEB), a drug-coated balloon, can reduce the number of stents a patient may need, making it a safe and effective way to treat certain heart attacks or unstable chest pain.

23 Apr 2026

Transcatheter arterialization of the deep veins improves quality of life for no-option CLTI patients

Data from the PROMISE III trial suggest that chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI) patients with no other treatment options experienced significant quality of life (QoL) improvements after undergoing transcatheter arterialization of the deep veins (TADV).

23 Apr 2026

Minimally-invasive stenting effectively treats painful post-thrombotic syndrome

A major multi-site clinical trial co-led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has shown that post-thrombotic syndrome - a common and often painful complication suffered by many people who have experienced blockages of major veins due to blood clots - can be effectively treated with a minimally invasive procedure.

13 Apr 2026

Wireless ureteral stent sleeve enables early detection of hydronephrosis

Ureteral stents are widely used to relieve obstruction and protect kidney function, but they can also become blocked, triggering hydronephrosis and prolonged elevation of intrarenal pressure that may impair renal function.

9 Apr 2026

Deferring PCI before TAVR shows comparable outcomes in elderly patients

Older patients with coronary artery disease scheduled for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) had comparable outcomes regardless of whether they underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) before TAVR, according to findings from the PRO-TAVI study presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session (ACC.26).

29 Mar 2026

Left-ventricular unloading during angioplasty fails to improve patient outcomes

The first randomized trial to compare standard percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), also known as coronary angioplasty, with PCI accompanied by the use of a temporary, miniaturized pump to support the heart in patients with both severe coronary heart disease and moderate to severe heart failure found no significant difference between the two approaches.

29 Mar 2026

Novel vFFR method performs similar to invasive coronary assessment

A novel, minimally invasive method of determining whether fatty deposits in a coronary artery are restricting blood flow to a patient's heart performed similarly to the standard, more-invasive procedure in a large multi-country European randomized trial presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session (ACC.26).

29 Mar 2026

AI-based tool matches standard method for coronary blood flow assessment

A novel, minimally invasive computer software-based method that uses artificial intelligence to determine whether plaques in a coronary artery are restricting blood flow to the patient's heart performed similarly to the standard, more invasive wire-based procedure, according to a large international randomized trial presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session (ACC.26).

29 Mar 2026