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By Mayo Clinic Staff

A stent is a small mesh tube put into an artery to keep it open. A drug-eluting stent has a coating that slowly releases medicine. The medicine helps prevent scar tissue from forming in the stent. A drug-eluting stent is the most common type of stent used to treat a blockage of the heart arteries.

A sudden blockage in the stent may cause a heart attack. Newer drug-eluting stents do a better job of keeping the artery open. They also are less likely to get blocked than older drug-eluting stents or stents without a medicine coating. Stents without a coating are called bare-metal stents.