The Safety of Paclitaxel-Coated Devices for Patients with Peripheral Artery Disease

AbstractPurpose of ReviewPeripheral artery disease (PAD) is a common, debilitating disease that impacts 8.5 million Americans and carries a poor prognosis. The most common manifestation of lower extremity PAD is claudication —a condition which significantly reduces quality of life and functional status. Paclitaxel-coated balloons and stents (PCBs and PESs) represented a breakthrough in the ability to treat medication-refractory patients relative to bare metal stents (BMSs) and percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PT A) because they improve primary patency rates, reduce target lesion revascularization (TLR), and minimize late-lumen loss for femoropopliteal lesions. As a result, paclitaxel-coated devices (PCDs) were swiftly established as the standard of care for revascularization of femoropopliteal artery diseas e. A recent meta-analysis of summary-level data demonstrated a late mortality signal for patients treated with paclitaxel-coated devices relative to uncoated devices. This has had a major impact on the vascular community and for the treatment of patients with PAD. Herein, we provide a detailed revie w of the available data on the late mortality signal associated with paclitaxel.Recent FindingsIn December of 2018, Katsanos et al. J Am Heart Assoc 7: e011245,2018) published data from randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) that demonstrated an increase in mortality at 2 and 5 years in patients treated with PCDs involving the femoropopliteal arterial segment relative to p...
Source: Current Cardiology Reports - Category: Cardiology Source Type: research