Stent

In medicine, a stent is a tube or other device placed in the body to create a passage between two hollow spaces, and stenting is the placement of a stent. There is a wide variety of stents used for different purposes, from expandable coronary, vascular and biliary stents, to simple plastic stents used to allow the flow of urine between kidney and bladder. Stent is also used as a verb to describe the placement of such a device, particularly when a disease such as atherosclerosis has pathologically narrowed a structure such as an artery.

Stent types

Overuse

In 2007 the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a trial called COURAGE. The trial gave recommendations about the practice of stenting in PCI, a heart intervention. This study was recognized as strong evidence for the need for a field-wide change in practice.

Medical societies recommend that surgeons not perform stenting in the usual surgery of otherwise healthy individuals during percutaneous coronary intervention. A report by the Chicago Tribune also noted that the use of cardiac coronary artery stents was too high in cases where the patient was in at least stable condition and the coronary artery stent(s) was implanted on an elective basis—many times more than one is implanted in the same procedure, even in the same vessel. However, the report was careful to note that they are indisputably still a viable therapy that often produces satisfactory results for those with acute coronary artery disease, such as relief of an arterial occlusion that has caused a heart attack (myocardial infarction), or where there is a danger of a piece of the blockage detaching and traveling (a thrombosis) to occlude a vessel in the cardiopulmonary system or the brain.

Stent (surname)

Stent is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Star Trek: Enterprise

Star Trek: Enterprise (titled simply Enterprise for the first two seasons; sometimes abbreviated to ST: ENT) is an American science fiction TV series and a prequel to the original Star Trek series. The series premiered on September 26, 2001, on the UPN television network and the final episode aired on May 13, 2005.

The show is set in regions of the Milky Way galaxy near Earth, aboard the Enterprise NX-01, Earth's first starship designed for long-range exploration of the galaxy and the first to be Warp 5-capable. The series begins in 2151 (115 years before the original series) when Jonathan Archer becomes the captain of the Enterprise, and ends in 2161 with the formation of the United Federation of Planets.

Production

In May 2000, Rick Berman, executive producer of Star Trek: Voyager, revealed that a new series would premiere following the final season of Voyager. Little news was forthcoming for months as Berman and Brannon Braga developed the untitled series, known only as "Series V", until February 2001, when Paramount signed Herman Zimmerman and John Eaves to production design Series V. Within a month, scenic designer Michael Okuda, another long-time Trek veteran, was also signed.Michael Westmore, make-up designer for Trek since Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), was announced as working on Series V by the end of April. Returning as director of photography would be Marvin V. Rush, who had been working on various Treks since the third season of TNG. For visual effects, Ronald B. Moore, who had previously worked on TNG and Voyager, was brought in.