Regular listeners know I'm very skeptical about aggressive interventional cardiology procedures. In these procedures a cardiologist inserts a tube that goes all the way into the coronary artery itself and then balloons it it wide open so blood can flow and bring oxygen to the heart muscle. Frequently a stent, think scaffolding, is inserted too.
New study out claims that angioplasty/stents over used in stable patients. One doc set a record and implanted 30 stents in a single day. The drug company rewarded him with a $1407 dollar pig roast!
Money Quotes:
"This tends to confirm concerns that many people have expressed—that there are many thousands of patients who undergo coronary interventions for very questionable indications," said Steven Nissen, head of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.
One big warning sign that stents were likely being implanted unnecessarily in some patients came in 2007 when the New England Journal of Medicine published a study known as "Courage" by a Buffalo, N.Y. cardiologist named William Boden. The Courage study, which tracked 2,287 patients for five years, showed stents weren't any better than a cocktail of medicines to treat patients suffering from chronic but stable chest pain."
All I'm saying is if your heart disease is stable think before you undergo an angioplasty. Make sure you need it. Get a second opinion.
