GLOBAL HEALTH: Drug Eluting Stents, PFO Closure: Indications Not Obvious

Audio Journal of Global Health Issues reporting from American College of Physicians Annual Meeting: Internal Medicine 2007; San Diego April 19-21 Drug Eluting Stents, PFO Closure: Indications Not Obvious REFERENCE: ABSTRACT ACP Internal Medicine 2007, ERA 002 MARK REISMAN, Swedish Medical Center, Seattle Drug eluting stents may not always be the automatic choice over the bare metal variety for patients requiring intervention, despite the important clinical advantages that have been emerging from their introduction recently. This is according to Mark Reisman who gave the Internal Medicine 2007 conference in San Diego his latest insights from the rapidly changing world of interventional cardiology. At this (recently renamed) annual meeting of the American College of Physicians he also discussed the difficult question of which patients are candidates for PFO closure, and what the clinical objectives of this might be: including the possible reduction of migraine headaches. After his session he talked with Peter Goodwin.