Drug-Eluting Stents for Treatment of Peripheral Artery Disease

Endovascular intervention is a mainstay treatment of peripheral artery disease (PAD) in addition to aggressive risk factor modification and exercise programs in patients with favorable anatomy or in those who are considered too high risk for surgical intervention. Treatment with percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) and bare metal stents (BMS) has been limited by high rates of in-stent restenosis (ISR) requiring repeat revascularization. Drug-eluting stents (DES), developed and designed to reduce ISR, offer a promising solution to the current challenges in endovascular management of PAD. Several randomized clinical trials have shown improved short- and mid-term outcomes with DES as compared with both PTA and BMS. Herein we provide an up-to-date review of the current literature on DES use in PAD.