Restenosis

Restenosis literally means the reoccurrence of stenosis. This is usually restenosis of an artery, or other blood vessel, but possibly any hollow organ that has been "unblocked". This term is common in vascular surgery, cardiac surgery, interventional radiology, or interventional cardiologyfollowing angioplasty, all branches of medicinethat frequently treat stenotic lesions.

Coronary restenosis

There are probably several mechanisms that lead to restenosis. An important one is the inflammatoryresponse, which induces tissue proliferation around an angioplasty site.

Cardiologists have tried a number of approaches to decrease the risk of restenosis. Stentingis becoming more commonplace; after balloon angioplasty, a metal mesh is pressed against the wall of the artery that has been opened, decreasing the risk of restenosis. Other approaches include local radiotherapyand the use of immunosuppressivedrugs, coated onto the stenting mesh. Analogues of rapamycin, such as tacrolimus(FK-506), sirolimusand more so everolimus, normally used as immunosuppressants but recently discovered to also inhibit the proliferation of vascularsmooth musclecells, have appeared to be quite effective in preventing restenosis in clinical trials. Antisense knockdown of c-myc, a protein critical for progression of cell replication, is another approach to inhibit cell proliferation and is undergoing clinical trials in Europe using Morpholinooligos.

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It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restenosis Wikipedia article Restenosis.