Evolving Coronary Stent Technologies - A Glimpse Into the Future

Abstract

One of the most widely accepted forms of treatmentfor coronary artery disease (CAD) is the implementation of stents into the vessel. This area of research is constantly evolving, ranging from bare-metal stents through drug-eluting stentsand, more recently, approaching bioresorbable stents and polymer-free stents. This article reviews the evolution of all these devices and emphasizes how they might be further evolved to provide an optimal coronary stent and overcome unsolved challenges in stent development. We thoroughly evaluated a number of published studies in order to advance coronary stent technologies. Additionally, we looked for variousliteraturethat highlighted the inadequacies of the coronary stents that are currently availableand how they might be modified to create the optimum coronary stent. Coronary stents have significantly improved clinical outcomes in interventional cardiology, but there are still a number of drawbacks, including an persisted risk of thrombosis due to endothelial injury and in-stent restenosis. Gene eluting stents (GES) and customized coronary stents with self-reporting stent sensors are appealing alternatives to existing stent approaches. Considering the adequacy of these gene eluting stents (GES), customized coronary stents produced by novel 4D printing technologies and integrated self-reporting stent sensors should be assumed for anticipating future advancements to optimal coronary stent devices; however, more interventional evidenceis required to determine the future prospects of these stent innovations.