A drug-eluting stent (DES) is a peripheral or coronary stent (a scaffold) placed into narrowed, diseased peripheral or coronary arteries that slowly releases a drug to block cell proliferation.This prevents fibrosisthat, together with clots (thrombi), could otherwise block the stented artery, a process called restenosis. The stent is usually placed within the peripheral or coronary artery by an interventional cardiologist or interventional radiologist during an angioplasty procedure. 
Drug-eluting stents in current clinical use were approved by the FDA after clinical trials showed they were statistically superior to bare-metal stents for the treatment of native coronary artery narrowings, having lower rates of major adverse cardiac events (usually defined as a composite clinical endpoint of death + myocardial infarction + repeat intervention because of restenosis).The first drug-eluting stents to be approved in Europe and the U.S. were coated with paclitaxel or an mTOR inhibitor, such as sirolimus.