IVTPL launches latest DES-COSTER for coronary heart disease

IVTPL (Interventional Technologies Pvt. Ltd.) has launched COSTAR, the latest generation drug eluting stent (DES), to treat Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). COSTAR is a product of ConorMed USA. The product makes use of "Reservoirs" or holes which are made in the stent itself and which houses the drug and the polymer rather than coating the stent surface with the polymer and the drug. This results in overcoming the problems of polymer cracking when the stents have to be implanted in more difficult and tortuous arteries.

The novel stent is made from Cobalt Chromium and not stainless steel as is the case with the 1st generation DES. It makes stronger and denser than stainless steel. Its thinner and more malleable nature allows for enhanced flexibility and deliverability and therefore can reach even the farthest and difficult anatomies in a coronary artery. Cobalt Chromium is more radiopaque and hence more visible than stainless steel and is also MRI compatible. It has a biodegradable polymer unlike the conventional DES, which ensures complete elimination of the drug from the stent over a finite period of time without drug retention, which may be toxic  in nature.

COSTAR is the latest generation drug eluting stent, which is supported by extensive clinical trials conducted in Europe as well as in India. The Indian trials were conducted in four premier hospitals in India - Batra Hospital, New Delhi, Escorts Heart Centre, New Delhi, SAL Hospital, Ahmedabad and Wockhardt Hospital, Bangalore.

(Ref : Chronicle Pharmabiz Dated March 24, 2005)