Are drug-eluting stents the future of SFA treatment?

Drug-eluting stent (DES) technology was developed to prevent early thrombosis and late luminal loss to potentially improve long-term patency rates. Although favorable DES results have recently become available with the Zilver PTX and STRIDES studies, the high price of DES is a major drawback for this technology to become the golden standard for peripheral endovascular therapy in de novo femoro-popliteal (FP) lesions. Nevertheless, DES has the potential to make the difference and to establish itself as an important treatment option in patients presenting with TASC C&D FP lesions who are at high-risk for surgery and for the treatment of in-stent restenosis, where until now, no valuable treatment option has proven to be beneficial.