Abbott (NYSE:ABT) reported today that patients who were treated with the company’s Xience coronary stent for left-main coronary artery disease felt better faster compared to patients who had open-heart surgery.
The data were presented at this year’s Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting during a late-breaking session.
“For any treatment, it’s important to not only consider clinical outcomes such as recurrent heart attacks or stroke, but also to consider the effect of the treatment on a patient’s quality of life,” study investigator Dr. Suzanne Baron said in prepared remarks. “These data demonstrate that PCI is a reasonable treatment option for patients with left main coronary artery disease that allows them to potentially avoid surgery and to rapidly obtain a better quality of life after revascularization.”
The company conducted a quality-of-life analysis based on data from its Xience Excel study, which enrolled 1,905 people to compare the safety and efficacy of percutaneous coronary intervention with Xience and coronary artery bypass grafting in patients with left main coronary artery disease.
After one month, one year and three years, patients were asked to report the frequency of things like angina and symptoms of depression.
Patients who were treated with Xience reported significantly greater freedom from angina and 60% of them said they had no difficulty breathing compared to 44% of people who had surgery.
Abbott also reported that 8% of people treated with Xience reported symptoms of clinical depression compared to 19% of surgery patients. That trend continued into the one-year follow-up. After three years, the number of patients reporting symptoms of clinical depression were comparable at around 8%.
Freedom from angina and difficulty breathing were comparable after one year, Abbott added, and those findings continued out to three years.
“For years, we’ve debated over the best way to restore vessel function to patients with coronary artery disease,” Dr. Charles Simonton, chief medical officer of Abbott’s vascular business, added. “It’s important to weigh the benefits and risk of any treatment, and these data provide confidence that Xience can be considered as a potential option for many types of patients with coronary artery disease, including those with left-main disease.”
Also today, the company announced that its next-generation Xience Sierra drug-eluting stent won CE Mark approval.
