New findings on Medtronic’s drug-filled stent (DFS) were unveiled this week at the annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2016 conference that suggest metallic stents are still being improved and won’t be phased out anytime soon.

The stent, a polymer-free device with controlled and sustained drug delivery, is used to quickly heal heart vessels.

The stent was compared to a current-generation drug-eluting stent (DES) in a study by Stephen G. Worthley, PhD, a professor at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Adelaide, Australia. The full study, titled RevElution, was published Oct. 31 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"These early results demonstrate that the controlled and sustained elution of the polymer-free DFS show the potential for rapid healing without inflammation and positive clinical outcomes," Worthley said in a statement to Cardiovascular Business.

The trial, which studied 101 patients at 14 centers in three countries, measured patient outcomes at nine and 24 months, according to the study.

Results showed that DFS improved lumen areas after nine months compared to the DES. The DFS was also associated with low rates of lesion failure and stent thrombosis. It had a healing profile of 91.4 percent at one month and 95.6 percent at three months.

“[The] results are really excellent,” said Dean J. Kereiakes, MD, an interventional cardiologist at the Christ Hospital Health Network, at a TCT press conference. “Though the numbers are small, it’s very intriguing.”

Medtronic’s stent is currently only available for investigational use and is not approved for use outside of clinical studies.

“I think the big message here is that we continue to see improvements in metallic stents,” said Roxana Mehran, MD, a cardiologist at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. “We’ve been sort of moving toward polymer-free [and] bioresorbable polymers, but metallic stents are not out, and I think we’re continuing to see very nice improvements.”