UPDATE 1-Boston Scientific's new stent good as the old one

* New platinum chromium stent as effective as older one

* Trial compared new Taxus Element with Taxus Express

* No safety problems seen in studies (Adds study detail, background, researcher, analyst comment, bylines)

By Debra Sherman and Bill Berkrot

ATLANTA, March 15 (Reuters) - Boston Scientific Corp's (BSX.N) third-generation heart stent worked as well as its older models, meeting the primary goal of a pair of clinical trials, researchers said on Monday.

The Boston Scientific-sponsored trials, dubbed Perseus, compared its newly designed Taxus Element stent, based on a platinum chromium alloy, with its older Taxus Express stent, which has been losing market share to competitors, including Abbott Laboratories' (ABT.N) Xience stent.

Among patients who received the Element stent, 5.57 percent required repeat intervention at one year, compared with 6.14 percent of patients who got the older Express stent in the larger of the two trials, according to data presented at the American College of Cardiology scientific meeting in Atlanta.

Stents are tiny tubes that are inserted into heart arteries that have been cleared of blockages via angioplasty procedures. The newer models, including both tested in these trials, are coated with drugs to help prevent reclogging of the treated artery.

The results came the same day the company announced it was suspending all sales of its implantable heart defibrillators after it failed to notify regulators of changes in how it manufactures the devices. [ID:nN15186051]

The larger 1,262-patient study was designed to show that the new stent, which is thinner and more flexible, is at least as effective as the older stainless steel model and will not fracture easily.

The trial "showed that you can have thinner struts, change the alloy and not lose effectiveness," said Dr Louis Cannon, a cardiologist at the Cardiac & Vascular Research Center of Northern Michigan and one of the study's lead investigators.

The thinness and design of the new stent makes it easier to implant and the modified strut designs allows for more uniform drug distribution, Cannon said.

Despite the thinness of the device, it is still visible under X-ray because it contains platinum, he added.

Both devices deliver the drug paclitaxel to prevent diseased vessels from reclogging. The stents are delivered via a catheter, which is threaded through blood vessels to the heart artery.

The second study of 224 patients focused on smaller vessels and also met its main goal of showing less narrowing of the stented vessel at 9 months.

No safety concerns were seen in either study.

The Perseus trial has drawn investor attention because it provides a first look at what is expected to become the backbone the company's coronary stent franchise.

Positive results, said RBC Capital Markets medical device analyst Glenn Novarro, could help stabilize Boston Scientific's Taxus stent franchise and pave the way for a mid-2011 launch for the Taxus Element in the United States. (Reporting by Debra Sherman and Bill Berkrot; editing by Derek Caney and Tim Dobbyn)