Angioplasty has completely transformed the treatment of coronary artery disease and is widely used, with more than 800,000 procedures performed worldwide per year. However, the enthusiasm for angioplasty is shadowed by restenosis, which remains a critical problem after the procedure, resulting in clinical recurrence in over a third of patients. Recently, the mechanisms of restenosis have been completely reappraised with an enriched understanding that the original concept of neointimal hyperplasia may not be accounting for the bulk of the problem.
There is a desperate need to heighten...