Drug-eluting Balloons in Coronary Artery Disease: Past, Present and Future

The use of drug eluting stents (DES) majorly reduced in-stent restenosis though preventing not only recoil of the vessel wall and late negative remodelling, but also significantly inhibiting neo-intimal hyperplasia formation. However, concerns about in-stent thrombosis, and the dependency on prolonged dual antiplatelet therapy, and continued restenosis in complex lesion subsets, led to a search for alternative treatment devices that will tackle restenosis rates without the drawbacks associated with DES.2-5 1. University Medical Center Utrecht, department of Interventional Cardiology