Boston Scientific Corp.’s first-quarter profit more than doubled as the medical device maker cut expenses to offset declining sales of drug-coated heart stents.

The Natick, Mass.-based company said Monday it posted net income of $322 million, or 21 cents per share, in the January-March period, compared with a profit of $120 million, or 8 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

Net sales fell slightly to $2.05 billion from $2.09 billion a year earlier. Both comparison figures included sales from five businesses that Boston Scientific recently sold to reduce debt from its $27 billion acquisition of Guidant Corp. two years ago.

The results were clouded by one-time charges and tax gains from the asset sales, and from Boston Scientific’s elimination of 2,300 jobs, or 8 percent of its work force.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast a profit of 11 cents per share in the latest period, but it was unclear whether that estimate included all the one-time items that Boston Scientific counted. The biggest were a $114 million after-tax gain from the sale of five businesses, and $143 million in after-tax amortization expense.

Excluding such items, Boston Scientific’s profit was $357 million, or 24 cents per share, up from $262 million, or 17 cents per share, a year ago.

“We continued to make good progress during the quarter, particularly in our efforts to bring expenses in line with revenues,” said Jim Tobin, Boston Scientific’s president and chief executive officer.

Boston Scientific expects to post a second-quarter profit of 14 cents to 19 cents per share _ excluding one-time items _ on sales of $1.95 billion to $2.075 billion. Analysts expected a profit of 12 cents per share on sales of $2.02 billion.

Boston Scientific released its earnings after its shares rose 38 cents, or 3 percent, to close at $13.03. In after-hours trading, the stock gained another 67 cents.

Sales of Boston Scientific’s drug-coated heart stents fell nearly 9 percent to $428 million in the latest quarter from $468 million a year earlier.

Use of drug-coated stents to prop coronary arteries open after plaque-clearing surgery has declined amid research data questioning the devices’ safety and effectiveness compared with older bare-metal versions, although some more recent studies have called those findings into question.

The safety concerns have reduced the number of stent procedures at a time when prices have declined amid growing competition from new players in the drug-coated stent market. Last week, Boston Scientific’s chief drug-coated stent rival, Johnson & Johnson, reported a 24 percent decline in sales of its Cypher stent, sharper than the 9 percent decline for Boston Scientific’s Taxus.

Despite the U.S. regulators’ approval of Medtronic Inc.’s Endeavor stent in February, Tobin said Boston Scientific “held our (drug-coated stent) leadership positions in both the U.S. and worldwide markets.”

Sales of implanted defibrillators rose 3 percent in the latest quarter to $411 million from $398 million a year earlier. That market has only recently begun to recover from a series of safety-related recalls a few years ago.

Chris Cooley, an analyst with FTN Midwest Securities, said Boston Scientific’s cost-cutting appeared to be helping the company’s bottom line a bit faster than expected.

But Cooley called the company’s stent and defibrillator results “a little disappointing,” because those results were boosted more by international sales gains and the weak dollar than U.S. sales trends.

In addition, a defibrillator rival, St. Jude Medical Inc., last week reported a far healthier first-quarter defibrillator sales gain of 20 percent, compared with Boston Scientific’s 3 percent increase.

Boston Scientific planned to discuss its quarterly results in a conference call with analysts Tuesday morning.