A bifurcation is an area where one main blood vessel branches out into two smaller vessels, like a fork in the road: one being the continuation of the main vessel, the other one often referred to as the side branch.  Narrowings at a bifurcation are very common—more than 500,000 bifurcation coronary lesions are treated each year. But even using drug-eluting stents (DES), the restenosis rate in bifurcations is a startling 23-26 percent. The difficulty in treating bifurcated lesions with conventional interventional approaches — i.e., angioplasty with stenting — lies in the troublesome anatomical terrain in which the lesions occur. Having to work at the Y-shaped intersection of two vessels, interventionalists have to maneuver multiple guidewires and stents, which often present challenges that increase the procedure’s complexity.  Equally important, current stents, since they are not designed to fit bifurcated vessels, do not properly scaffold the area—and specifically the side branch entrance.  Thus, having a device specifically designed for bifurcations—which is a significant unmet clinical need—should help avoid many of these clinical problems.  In this episode, Professor Joachim Schofer of the Center for Cardiology and Vascular Interventions, Hamburg, Germany, gives his perspective on bifurcated stents, in general, and the Stentys birfurcated stent, in particular.