Is this for benign or malignant disease?

Also, which particular area are you referring to regarding the stent? Cardiac, oesophageal, biliary?

Its mainly for malignant airway obstruction.

Hi Arjun

I agree with Dr Gary... Is it for Coronary or Renal or Pulmonary or Gastro application?

Where is the data coming from Silicone are used more in Europe than in US for Stents?

Regards

R

@Ramanan Lakshminarayanan

As i mentioned in above comment, I was referring only to Airway Stents. I have been discussing this topic in private forums with industry experts from Europe, India and US. In these discussions it was inferred that Silicone stents are used more in Europe while they prefer Metallic stents in US. Also it was astonishing to know that in UK uncovered metallic stents were reported to be used which in a whole are not preferred in US or Europe, as they have chances of occurrence of tumor growth.

The reason for this might really be that in Europe more rigid bronchoscopies are done compared to the States and silicone stents can't be placed thorugh the flexible bronchoscope. Recomendation is to use only silicone stents for benign stenoses, while for malignant both metallic and silicone can be used. We use silicone stents in postintubational stenoses, and sometimes in malignant stenosis when the patient is expected to stard differential therapy so we expect that after the therapy he might not need the stent any more. But in majority of malignant stenoses we still use metallic ones.