Docs want ‘stent scoring system’ to regulate their cost

HOW WILL THE STENTS BE RATED

MUMBAI: Cardiologists have proposed a ‘stent scoring system’ to help heart patients and their families chose quality stents at the right price.

Stents are used during angioplasty, a procedure carried out to correct the narrowing of blood vessels.

Doctors said the scoring system will help the government determine the right price for stents. Currently, the prices are decided by the manufacturer without any regulation.

While patients may think that costlier stents are of better quality and give better clinical results, this may not always be true. Hence, the need for an objective scoring system, said doctors. Depending on the cost of the stent, the cost of an angioplasty can vary widely, giving patients little control on the cost.

Prices can range from Rs25,000 to Rs1,00,000, depending on the brand.

“At a time when the market has a wide array of stents, a scoring system will help patients make comparisons,” said Dr Sundeep Mishra, professor of cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) Delhi, who has proposed the scoring system in the latest edition of the Indian Heart Journal (IHJ).

The system, said doctors aims at scoring stents between 0 and 20, depending on the stent’s technological advancement along with the numbers of long-term clinical studies on the efficacy and side-effects. The score will rank stents based on the nature of the material used in the stent, thickness, design and data on the numbers of its long-term studies, said Dr Mishra. “There are stents which have the most advanced technology, but there aren’t many long-term clinical studies available on them.”