Is one stent better than another? University of Pennsylvania researchers compared three different carotid stents and found they are significantly similar to one another--and also highly effective at preventing stroke and death. As published in the journal JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, the study explored three different stent-and-embolic-protection-device combinations: Acculink/Accunet and Xact/Emboshield from Abbott ($ABT) and Precise/Angioguard from Cordis. It found that all three are associated with similarly low rates of stroke and death "on the order of 2%" in over 12,000 procedures, according to lead author Jay Giri. "A tremendous amount of time and energy has been spent theorizing about various technical considerations of carotid stenting systems that might make one superior to another," Giri said in a statement. "Our study effectively argues that continued focus on these specific technical aspects is unlikely to significantly improve stroke and death rates around carotid stenting." UPenn report | Abstract