FDA OKs treatment for arteries

[MIannaccone@dhhs.state.nh.us]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FDA approved a treatment for people whose heart arteries begin narrowing again after
they have been treated to widen the blood vessels. The agency approved two devices on Monday that use radiation
to halt the renarrowing. Stents, small metallic scaffolds, are commonly used to widen arteries that have become
clogged, causing chest pain. The stent is inserted at the site where the artery is becoming blocked and helps hold the
artery open. In most of the 700,000 people treated annually the symptoms clear up, but for a few the arteries begin
narrowing again due to an exaggerated healing response. Called in-stent restenosis, this problem has been very
difficult to treat, the FDA said. Now doctors will be able to use the new devices, called intravascular brachytherapy systems.
First the new blockage in the stent is reopened with a catheter that is briefly inflated like a balloon. Then the brachytherapy
device is temporarily placed at the site of the blockage. It provides radiation treatment, p
reventing the exaggerated healing response and a recurrence of a significant block.

Mario Iannaccone,
Health Physicist
miannacc@dhhs.state.nh.us

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