Drug-coated balloons, also referred to as drug-eluting balloons, were created as a way to reduce very high restenosis rates in peripheral vessels. They also have been investigated in clinical trials to prevent coronary artery in-stent restenosis. "As a peripheral operator that has greatly enjoyed the revolution in technology and the reduction in stenosis with the use of drug-eluting balloons in the lower extremities, a lot of us were ver saddened to here that drug-eluting balloons might be related to some type of systemic mortality risk, But mechanistically, it has never made sense to me that a lower-dose elution of paclitaxel from a balloon could somehow systemically cause some sort of mortality signal, explained Chandan Devireddy, M.D., cath lab director at Emory University Hospital Midtown, associate professor of medicine of interventional cardiology at Emory University, and chairperson for the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions Communications Committee.
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