Survival rates lower for heart transplant patients whose arteries reclose after stenting

Transplant patients are among those at highest risk of adverse outcomes when receiving a stent to address a blockage in an artery. Compared with the general public, these patients have a much higher rate of restenosis, a side effect of stenting in which the artery becomes re-blocked because of an exaggerated scarring process at the stenting site.

New research by UCLA researchers and colleagues has found that heart transplant patients who develop restenosis after receiving a stent have poor long-term survival.

‘The findings point to the need for improvements in prevention and treatment of transplant coronary artery disease that may help reduce restenosis for patients who require later cardiac procedures like stenting,’ said Dr. Michael Lee, an assistant professor of cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

A stenting procedure begins with an angioplasty, in which a catheter is placed in an artery of the groin and a tiny wire is snaked up through the artery to the blocked area of the heart. The clogged artery is cleaned out, and then a stent