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Article: EXPENSIVE INNOVATION; NEW DRUG-COATED STENTS COME WITH A HIGH COST TO HOSPITALS; NEW STENT NOT FOR EVERY PATIENT.(Business)
- Article from:
- The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
- Article date:
- March 27, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of The Herald Co. by the Gale Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: James T. Mulder Staff writer
A new medical device touted as a major breakthrough for heart patients could financially cripple some local hospitals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to soon approve a new kind of stent used to prop open coronary arteries.
Stents, tiny metal mesh devices that look like a spring inside a ballpoint pen, have been around since the early 1990s. They are threaded into the artery on a long thin tube, then popped open mechanically so they can hold up the artery walls.
Blocked arteries cause heart attacks.
The new stents are coated with a drug designed to prevent the artery from closing up again, a problem ...