Two studies published in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine conclude that drug-eluting stents are safe to implant immediately after a heart attack, Bloomberg News reports. One study compared Johnson & Johnson's Cypher to bare-metal stents. The other compared Boston Scientific's Taxus to bare-metal stents. The Cypher study was more conclusive, finding that both patient groups had the same rate of heart attack and death, and that the bare-metal-stent patients were twice as likely to need another procedure to treat blockages. Only one case of clotting, an emerging concern for drug-eluting stents, was found in the Cypher patients. The Taxus study found lower rates of death, heart attack, and repeat procedures among the Taxus patients, but the researchers couldn't determine whether they were statistically significant.