A rigid tube that is surgically inserted to open up or keep open any body canal that may have become narrowed or closed up due to disease.
Stents are used to open narrowed coronary arteries in heart disease.
They are also used to relieve blockages caused by a tumour, for example in the oesophagus or pancreas.
A surgical device used to assist the healing of an operative anastamosis – a joining-up of two structures. A splint is left inside the lumen of a duct and this drains the contents.
n. a tube placed inside a tubular structure in the body to keep it open. It may be a simple plastic or metal tube; the former are more easily removable, while the latter give a larger lumen for a given outer diameter. Metallic stents are further divided into self-expanding stents, which open up by themselves on deployment, and balloon-expandable stents, which need to be expanded with the use of a balloon. Stents may be used at operation to aid healing of an anastomosis, for example of a ureter. Alternatively they can be placed across an obstruction to maintain an open lumen, for example in obstruction due to tumour in the oesophagus, stomach, bile ducts, colon, or ureter. In an artery after *angioplasty, stents help to prevent recoiling. The stents used in coronary artery disease are balloon-expandable and nowadays are coated with drugs that inhibit growth of the scar tissue (neointimal hyperplasia) responsible for recurrent stenosis. These are known as drug-eluting stents.
A narrowed or blocked coronary artery (see ARTERIES) can compromise the blood supply to the heart muscle (see HEART, DISEASES OF). A supportive tube or stent passed into each affected artery can restore the blood supply. The stent has a HEPARIN coating to stop blood clots from forming. Since it was ?rst performed in 1987, intracoronary stents have cut the reblockage rate from one in three patients who have had coronary ANGIOPLASTY to fewer than one in ten in cases where a stent was used with angioplasty.... intracoronary artery stenting
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