Drug-eluting Stent in Gastrointestinal Disease

Lee, Don Haeng

Abstract

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers cause obstruction of the GI tract including biliary tree. In advanced GI cancer, endoscopic stent insertion is the treatment of choice. However, the current stent allows only mechanical palliation of obstructed GI tract and has no anti-tumor effect. The primary role of a drug eluting stent (DES) in gastrointestinal malignancy is that it decreases the tumor re-growth and sustains the stent patency. This might not be as impressive as the effect of a vascular DES which decreases the incidence of restenosis and thus increases the survival rate of the patient. However, in terms of improving the quality of life of the patient, maintaining the stent patency is one of the most important task of GI doctors. With an advanced technology in stent production, Korea would be able to play an active role in the field of DES especially with more advanced anti-tumor effect. Moreover, advances in this type of drug delivery system will enable the development of local treatment of GI malignancy using endoscopy.