What is late restenosis in bare metal stent in coronary artery

[Tinu1959]

I have a bare metal stent in LAD for last nine months. Looks like everything is OK. I also understand that if restenosis does not take place for 8-9 months time it may not take place thereafter. I thought my worry is over.

But just few minutes back I mentioned this to my cardiologist who said that there is something called "late restenosis" in BMS which can take place much later. Now what do I do?? Does it take place instantly ot can I come to know about it with some periodic tests much before it becomes life threatening.

Please reply if someone knows about it.

Thanks

[Tinu1959]

Thanks for the reply. Kenkeith, looks like I belong to low risk group because I am not diabetic and stent is implanted in LAD(which is a bigger artery).?? Nine months have pased since I have the stent in place. I take CLOPIDOGREL and ASPRIN daily since MI.

Do you have some information on what is meant be "late restenosis". How late this can occur? This is my worry.

[kenkeith]

Restenosis after coronary artery stenting is a common phenomenon and represents a topic of great interest. Although a great volume of research is referring to restenosis, still many issues are not fully understood by the cardiological community.

One-year follow up among the nearly 6,000 studied individuals revealed an overall target vessel revascularization of 11.4%, with a 4.9% incidence of death. There was no trend in survival over the extent of follow up, however the adjusted rate of target vessel revascularization decreased over time to 9.3% from 2000 to 2002.
"This research complements the work of Ellis and colleagues, who similarly to the analysis of Kandzari and colleagues, documented low target vessel revascularization, and additionally identified specific patient subsets at low risk of 9-month revascularization after bare metal stent implantation. For example, a nondiabetic patient with a short, de novo, nonbifurcation lesion in a large vessel would be expected to have a very low risk of restenosis and little to gain from the use of a drug-eluting stent".  
For those at low risk for restenosis (non-diabetic, etc.), the use of a thin-strut bare metal stent should be considered a reasonable alternative or even superior alternative to a drug-eluting stent. DES carry a risk of clotting up to a year or more.  As a consequence there is a new- found appreciation for low revascularization after bare metal stents and concerns of late thrombosis with drug-eluting stents.

Are you the low risk group?  Is the implant the thin-strute bms?  If the answer is yes, then you should have a reduced risk of restenosis probably less than 10% in a year.