Restenosis after Angioplasty

Over the past two decades, percutaneous coronary intervention has revolutionized the treatment of symptomatic coronary artery disease, sparing countless patients the need for surgical revascularization. This year, up to a million procedures are likely to be performed in North America alone.The success of percutaneous coronary intervention has been due largely to an explosion in technology development, with the introduction of a broad array of balloon catheters, atherectomy devices, lasers, and stents. The impetus for the development of such devices has been the occurrence — noted soon after the introduction of balloon angioplasty — of intimal tears, arterial recoil, and . . .