September 10, 2012 | Journal of the American Medical Association
Compared with a bare-metal stent, the use of a stent with a biodegradable polymer that releases the drug biolimus resulted in a lower rate of major adverse cardiac events at 1 year among patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI; a certain pattern on an electrocardiogram following a heart attack) undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI; procedures such as balloon angioplasty or stent placement used to open narrowed coronary arteries), according to a study in the August 22/29 issue of JAMA.