Muraglitazar-Eluting Bioabsorbable Vascular Stent Inhibits Neointimal Hyperplasia in Porcine Iliac Arteries

Purpose To evaluate the biocompatibility of a new muraglitazar-eluting polylactide copolymer stent and investigate its ability to prevent the formation of intimal hyperplasia.

Materials and Methods Ten self-expandable muraglitazar-eluting poly-96l/4d-lactic acid (PLA96) stents and 10 self-expandable control PLA96 stents were implanted into porcine common iliac arteries. After 28 days follow-up, all stent-implanted iliac arteries were harvested and prepared for quantitative histomorphometric analysis.

Results Angiographic analysis revealed that one control PLA96 stent had occluded and one had migrated. Histomorphometric analysis demonstrated that, with the control PLA96 stent, the luminal diameter and area were decreased versus the muraglitazar-eluting PLA96 stents (means ± standard error of the mean, 3.58 mm ± 0.34 vs 4.16 mm ± 0.14 and 9.83 mm2 ± 2.41 vs 13.75 mm2 ± 0.93, respectively). The control PLA96 stent induced more intimal hyperplasia than the bioactive muraglitazar-eluting PLA96 stent (557 μm ± 122 vs 361 μm ± 32). Vascular injury scores demonstrated only mild vascular trauma for both stents (muraglitazar-eluting, 0.68 ± 0.07: control, 0.75 ± 0.08). Inflammation scores also showed mild inflammation for both stents (muraglitazar-eluting, 1.05 ± 0.17: control, 1.23 ± 0.19).

Conclusions This new muraglitazar-eluting PLA96 stent was shown to be biocompatible with a tendency for better patency and less intimal hyperplasia compared with the control PLA96 stents.