[Vascular stents: Approaches used to increase their clinical efficacy]. / Stenty sosudov: podkhody, ispol'zuemye dlia povysheniia ikh klinicheskoi éffektivnosti.

Using stents for endovascular restoration of blood flow made a revolution in vascular surgery, however, despite numerous variants of stents presented on the pharmacological market, there are no stents which would completely solve the problem of restenosis in the area of stent placement. In order to decrease growth of the neointima of the stented portions of vessels, stents coated with cytostatic and cytotoxic agents were worked out. To optimize the rate of drug release it was suggested to apply them in a mixture with biodegradable or biostable polymers. Placement of drug-eluting stents in a combination with dual antiplatelet therapy made it possible to decrease frequency of restenosis and reocclusion of the restored vascular lumen in patients, however it did not solve the problem of the development of thromboses and neointimal hyperplasia in the remote postoperative period. The article provides an overview of various modifications of vascular stents, clinical studies of stents of various manufacturers, as well as modern developments in manufacturing polymer/drug coatings and methods of applying them onto the stent. This is followed by analyzing the contribution of coatings to clinical efficacy of stents and prospects of increasing efficacy of vascular stents.

Design of Polyepitope DNA Vaccine against Breast Carcinoma Cells and Analysis of Its Expression in Dendritic Cells.

Polyepitope DNA vaccine inducing T-cell-mediated immune response against cancer-specific antigens is a promising tool for selective elimination of tumor cells. Breast cancer-specific polyepitope DNA vaccine was designed using TEpredict and PolyCTLDesigner software on the basis of immunogenic peptides of HER2 and Mammaglobin-1 (Mam) tumor antigens. LPS-free preparations of plasmid DNA encoding polyepitope T-cell antigen and full-length copies of HER2 and Mam antigens were obtained. TaqMan-PCR systems for evaluation of the expression of immunogens in cells were created. The protocol of vaccine DNA delivery into dendritic cells was optimized. Expression of the target immunogens in dendritic cells derived from human peripheral blood mononuclear fraction after transfection with plasmid DNA preparations is demonstrated.