Artery, Heal Thyself

• Infographic: Stented Growth
  The worldwide stent market peaked in 2006. Since then, new evidence of problems with drug-coated stents has hammered sales. Abbott, though, with its plain stents, has increased its share. Now, the company is betting that bioabsorbable stents could be the next big thing in unclogging arteries--and growth.

The challenge now is to get the absorption time right: If the stent dissolves too quickly, the artery may not remain open long enough and the patient would then be at risk for a heart attack. But if it goes too slowly, then there's less advantage over a traditional stent. And the faster you want the stent to dissipate, the harder it is to make it durable. Abbott's current lab studies show absorption rates of two-and-a-half years, says Richard Rapoza, Abbott's divisional VP in charge of Absorb. Researchers hope to cut that to one and a half. "A shorter absorption time may be achievable and better for marketing," he says, "but we don't want to push it down too far."

Finally, and perhaps most intriguing, researchers hope that by opening the artery and returning it to a natural state, an absorbable stent could help the body to heal itself. This remains the biggest open question for Absorb, one that will be resolved through additional human trials. "If you hold the vessel [with the stent] and enable it to grow as it receives signals from the body, then we can reestablish the healing curve and get rid of the problems that we see with metallic stents," explains Rapoza. "That's the really big promise of the technology."