Boston Scientific's older Taxus element was outperformed by Abbott Laboratories' Xience V heart on a measure of effectiveness and safety but could not manage to display an important advantage in diabetic patients.

Stents are little wire-mesh scaffolds which are used to open blocked or narrowed arteries. Medicines that coat the stents are helpful in preventing re-clogging.

Among 3,690 patients, a 38 percent reduction in death and heart attack was demonstrated by Xience as compared to Taxus on the central clinical goal of target lesion failure.

Xience patients showed 46 percent reduction in repeat procedures at one year on a secondary goal target lesion revascularization.

74 percent lower rate of stent thrombosis or blood clots went in favor of Xience again . The risk of blood clots has been a chief concern of interventional cardiologists in recent years.

Only 0.3 percent Xience patients showed stent thrombosis as compared to 1.1 percent of Taxus.

Apart from all this another1,100 patients with diabetes were studied but no significant difference in target failure between Xience and Taxus could be seen after one year. 6.4 percent Xience patients were experiencing those events vis-à-vis 6.9 percent for Taxus.

J. P. Morgan's data tells that Xience leads the market with about a 29 percent share.