A new study of heart patients shows that putting a small, drug-coated metal tube, or stent, inside the blood vessels can reduce the need for major surgery or other procedures. Each year, about 1 million Americans are treated for blocked heart vessels that prevent blood from flowing the way it should.

The stents are coated with a drug called Paclitaxel, which prevents scar tissue from growing and re-clogging the artery.

Researchers from Brigham and Woman's Hospital in Boston compared medicated stents to bare metal stents with no medication coating in more than 1,000 patients with serious blockages, finding that the drug-coated stent reduced the need for another stent or bypass surgery.

Dr. Jeffrey Popma, leader of the study, says, "Those patients who were treated with the bare metal stents were twice as likely to need to have another procedure in the future than were those patients who were treated with the medicated Paclitaxel stent."

The study's findings are published in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.