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Stents & Chemotherapy

Stents keep narrow or blocked arteries open so that blood flow restores, improving arterial viability and health. They also provide an avenue for physicians to route medication into the cancer patient's system.

  1. Chemotherapy

    • Chemotherapy traditionally meant infusing a cancer patient's body with cancer killing or inhibiting drugs. Contemporary treatment combines traditional methods with either oral medication or by using stents to deliver time-released medication and keeping venues open.

    Stents

    • Doctors use fabric, metal and drug-coated stents to keep open a cancer patient's veins to deliver chemotherapy drugs. This reduces unnecessary needle pokes and sticks and reduces chance for infection.

    Future of Stent Therapy

    • Drug-eluting stents, coated with material such as polymer which controls time-released medicine into a chemo patient's expanded arteries, is still being researched as a form of cancer treatment. Magnetic stents use magnetism to pull veins open. Further research must be completed regarding chemotherapy usage. An example of future stent therapy is the combination of photodynamic (light) therapy with biliary stents for advanced liver cancer patients.

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