UF&Shands, the University of Florida’s Academic Health Center, is one of 12 institutions nationwide initially approved to implant a new device for treatment of peripheral artery disease.
The Zilver PTX Drug-Eluting Vascular Stent is drug-coated and designed to help an artery in the upper leg called the superficial femoral artery stay open and unblocked from plaque, which can cause severe narrowing of the artery in peripheral artery disease. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the device in November for use in patients with the disease, and the manufacturer selected Shands at UF, which was involved in clinical trials of the stent, to receive some of the first stents manufactured for public use. UF vascular surgeons implanted UF&Shands’ first non-trial Zilver PTX stent in February.