Korean scientists have developed a new electronic stent that not only props open clogged or narrowed arteries, but can also provide feedback to doctors and therapy to heart patients before dissolving.

The stent, developed at the Korean Institute for Basic Science’s Center for Nanoparticle Research, offers the promise of better treatment for the estimated half-million Americans who undergo surgery every year to have a stent implanted to open a coronary artery narrowed by plaque.

Those mesh tubes can get clogged or cause other problems. But the Korean scientists, report in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano, said the new stent they have developed can minimize the risks associated with the procedure. It can also sense blood flow and temperature, store and transmit the information for analysis, and can be absorbed by the body after it finishes its job.

The device marks a major step forward in stents, which have been used to unblock coronary arteries for 30 years, said lead researchers Dae-Hyeong Kim, Seung Hong Choi, Taeghwan Hyeon and colleagues.

They said the new drug-releasing electronic stent — which provides diagnostic feedback by measuring blood flow, which slows when an artery starts narrowing — has been tested in animals. The researchers now hope to try it out in heart patients.