Boston Scientific says independent study shows Taxus stent performs better than Cypher

New York, Nov. 29 - Boston Scientific Corp. said that interim results from an independent study indicate its Taxus Express2 paclitaxel-eluting coronary stent performs better than Johnson & Johnson's Cypher sirolimus-eluting stent in reducing major adverse cardiovascular events and target vessel revascularization.

"The present study shows that Taxus stents are being implanted in patients who are slightly older, have higher lesion risk and somewhat smaller vessels than patients receiving Cypher stents," said Charles Simonton, chairman of the executive steering committee for the Stent study, in a news release.

"Based on data collected so far, paclitaxel- and sirolimus-eluting stents demonstrate similar efficacy and safety overall at nine months. When you adjust the two groups to account for the higher complexity level of the Taxus stent arm, results favor the Taxus stent, but without statistically significant differences between the two stents."

The Stent study is an independent registry of data from eight centers in the United States. It will eventually enroll more than 8,000 patients.

The latest interim results are an analysis of patients after nine months and cover 1,476 patients receiving the Taxus stent and 2,282 receiving Cypher.

"In contrast to some of the smaller, single-centre trials conducted in Europe, interim data from Stent suggest that paclitaxel- and sirolimus-eluting stents are either equal or show a trend favoring the Taxus stent," said Hank Kucheman, president of Boston Scientific's interventional cardiology business, in the release.

"Most importantly, the results confirm what we have seen again and again in randomized clinical trials, like Taxus II, IV and V, and in registries, like Arrive: the Taxus Express2 stent system performs well in real-world patient populations."

He added that full results are expected next year.

Boston Scientific is a Natick, Mass., medical device company.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.