Hourglass-shaped stent could ease severe chest pain from microvascular disease: Study

For decades, there have been few viable treatment options to improve blood flow through the tiny vessels of the heart. At most, doctors have treated symptoms of angina with several medications and cardiovascular disease prevention methods, including healthy eating, weight loss and regular exercise. The use of a stent could target the issue behind the chest pain-the severe reduction in blood flow affecting the heart muscle.

Unlike tube-shaped stents used to open clogged arteries, the hourglass-shaped stent narrows in the middle. The different design is thought to increase back pressure, redistributing blood flow more fully through small vessels in the heart that were not working at capacity.

"The patients with heart-related microvascular dysfunction in this study had little ability to control their chronic angina, which severely limited their day-to-day activities," says Amir Lerman, M.D., a cardiologist at Mayo Clinic and senior author of the study. "Beyond reductions in chest pain and being able to comfortably handle more physical activity, the majority of patients in the study also showed a connection between the changes in their coronary flow reserve, which is a measure of maximum blood flow, and changes in their quality-of-life responses on the survey. This points to the link between the physiological measurement and angina symptoms."

Dr. Lerman notes that more studies are needed to better understand how the reducer stent works and its long-term effects on blood flow. The stent did not improve chest pain symptoms in 20%-30% of the participants, so future research studies will need to better identify which patients respond best to this therapy.

Reference:

David Tryon, Michel T. Corban, Mohamad Alkhouli, Abhiram Prasad, Claire E. Raphael, Charanjit S. Rihal, Guy S. Reeder, Brad Lewis, Diana Albers, Rajiv Gulati, and Amir Lerman, Coronary Sinus Reducer Improves Angina, Quality of Life, and Coronary Flow Reserve in Microvascular Dysfunction, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, DOI: 10.1016/j.jcin.2024.09.018.