Evaluation of various alloys for stent on platelet aggregation activity

Nowadays coronary artheroslerotic disease becomes a primary health problem due to its high morbidity and mortality rate. Such disease is related to the poor coronary blood flow quality. Coronary stent implantation is widely accepted to overcome the problem. There are various alloys available for stent commercially by different prices. This study was aimed to evaluate the various alloys for stent on platelet aggregation activity. The materials used under reseach were stainless-steel of SS 316L (Otocompo, Sweden) and cobalt-chromium of CoCr L605 (Remanium Star, Germany). Twenty eights alloys (14 SS 316L and 14 CoCr L605) were shaped as discs with 10 mm diameter and 2 mm thickness respectively. Venous blood was drawn from medial cubiti vein from 14 subjects of healthy people with neither established atherosclerotic disease nor risk factors. The drawn blood from each subject further be divided into three parts: one part was left without any induction (control), the other two parts were contacted to SS 316L and CoCr L605 respectively. Platelet aggregation activity in all of the samples were then calculated and analyzed by Anova. The result showed the average of platelet aggregation activity in percentage (%) were 89.96±17.93 (control), 80.16±22.04 (CoCr L605), and 80.91±20.68 (SS 316L). The Anova showed p>0.05. In conclusion, stainless-steel of SS 316L and cobalt-chromium of CoCr L605 did not affect platelet aggregation activity on healthy subject; therefore, both of the alloys were potential to be used as material choices for stent devices. Further research is needed to evaluate the effect of both alloys on atherosclerotic patients.