Abbott announced the expansion of the company's Xience V USA post-approval study designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the company's market-leading Xience V Everolimus Eluting Coronary Stent System in a real-world clinical setting out to five years. The expansion allows for more than 2,000 patients from the Xience V USA trial to be eligible to cross over into the landmark Dual Anti-Platelet Therapy (DAPT) Trial, an industry-wide collaboration with medical device and pharmaceutical companies.

"The expansion of the Xience V USA trial will enable Abbott to enrol more than 2,000 patients who may be eligible to also participate in the DAPT Trial to help advance the body of scientific knowledge regarding the best duration for patients to take blood-thinning medications after a stent procedure," said Charles Simonton, FACC, FSCAI, divisional vice president, Medical Affairs, and chief medical officer, Abbott Vascular. "We anticipate the DAPT Trial results will be instrumental in establishing definitive guidelines. As an industry leader, Abbott is proud to play a significant role in contributing patients to this important study."

The first patient was enrolled into the Xience V USA expansion by James Hermiller, director, Cardiac Catheterization Labs, The Care Group at St Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, Ind. Dr Hermiller is a principal investigator of the Xience V USA trial along with Mitch Krucoff, FACC, FCCP, director, Cardiovascular Devices Unit, Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina.

The Xience V USA trial expansion allows for an additional 3,000 patients to be enrolled into Abbott's study, which was originally designed to study 5,000 patients in the United States. The primary endpoint of Xience V USA is a measure of stent thrombosis every year out to five years, as defined by the Dublin/Academic Research Consortium (ARC). The ARC definition of late stent thrombosis was developed to eliminate variability in the definitions across various drug eluting stent trials.

Xience V is used to treat coronary artery disease by propping open a narrowed or blocked artery and releasing the drug, everolimus, in a controlled manner to prevent the artery from becoming blocked again following a stent procedure.