Drug-eluting Biliary Stent / 대한췌담도학회지

ABSTRACT

Biliary drainage is necessary to improve the survival or quality of life of patients with malignant biliary obstruction. In the past, surgery was the primary treatment for biliary drainage, but recently, endoscopic or percutaneous stent implantation has been recognized as the main treatment. Various materials and structures have been devised and developed to increase the patency of the biliary stent. In the development of these stents, drug-eluting biliary stents with an anti-tumoral agent (DES) have emerged to increase the stent patency period by chemically inhibiting tumor growth in the stent through the change of the coating material. The DESs have been proved to be stable through several animal and clinical trials, but their effectiveness has not been demonstrated. We will discuss the development process, problems, and future directions of DES that has been clinically applied.