A shocking report revealed that patients with multiple stents or having longer stent greater than 31.5mm could be associated with high risk of mortality. Around 4.5% of patients died within a year of angioplasty. Death occurred in patients between the age group 35-75, where most of the people were elderly. Similarly, more patients who received metal stents had to be re-hospitalized, compared to those who received sophisticated drug-eluting stents.

Dr Bhanu Duggal, the study author cum cardiologist from JJ Hospital in Mumbai said, “At present, most of us do a visual assessment of the blockage before deciding to stent it; not every blockage that is over 70% needs to be stented; Only those that cause pain or other physiological symptoms should be stented; cardiologists need to first locate the problem blockages and only tackle those.”

The common practice followed in Indian is for patients who have a three-vessel blockage to receive three or more stents resulting in a higher usage of bare metal stents.

Nowadays, research is focused on longer stents. Dr. Bhanu Duggal said, “The longest stent we have at present is 48mm but there is talk of a 60mm stent being introduced in the near future.”

Hereafter, the focus should be directed towards the early detection of the disease, where fewer stents can be used.