But the repeat procedures also raise costs and risks.
Stent patients were more likely to need repeat procedures, the researchers found.
The disadvantage of that stent is that the arteries reclog twice as often, exposing patients to repeat procedures.
Because the drug coatings made it less likely that the stent site would become reclogged, they reasoned, there would be less need for repeat procedures.
One theory is that the higher number of repeat procedures with bare metal stents leads to enough deaths and heart attacks to offset any higher clotting risk in the drug-coated devices.
"Sort Out III at nine months has no bearing on what matters most to patients with coronary artery disease — long-term freedom from adverse events and long-term freedom from repeat procedures," he added.
This study showed that the sirolimus-coated stent prevented the scarring, known as intimal proliferation, and often the need for repeat procedures, known as angioplasties, to unblock arteries for eight months after implantation.
But they say patients getting current drug-coated stents would be expected to have to return to the hospital less often and and undergo fewer repeat procedures than the Courage patients who got bare metal stents.
Results from the study, which included more than 2,000 patients, showed that heart patients who received the Medtronic device, called Endeavor, had more heart attacks and blood clots and needed repeat procedures more often than those treated with the Johnson & Johnson stent, known as Cypher.
Of the 1.3 million abortions performed annually in the United States, approximately half are repeat procedures.
The supply of native veins is limited, and many individuals require multiple grafts and repeat procedures.
