Surgery for blocked arteries is often unwarranted, researchers find

The findings of a large group of researchers have brought up many questions on the medical care provided to patients who are suffering from blocked coronary arteries and go for bypass surgeries and stents to cure the condition. The report was presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Institution.

The new study finds out that thousands of patients who suffer from blocked coronary arteries and have drug therapy alone can have better chances of survival than those persons who have undergone bypass surgeries and stents being fitted in the coronary arteries along with drug therapy.

The bypass surgery although was helpful in reducing the chest pain of the patients called enigma.

This is not enough to suggest that stents and bypass surgeries are being overused today. Doctors have not followed the results of the previous studies saying them as inconclusive and that the design and the results of the studies had flaws in them.

Dr Elliot Antman a senior physician at the hospital who was also a part of the recent study told that it is indeed true as the previously the risk factors were not monitored properly like the LDL cholesterol which might have changed the outcomes. Neither did the trials had developed stents that are used today which secrete drugs which prevent the arteries from closing again.

With its reduced size and advanced design of the stents, the study was intended to show the benefits of bypass surgery and settle questions on stents and bypass.

Dr Levine who is one of the members of the guidelines committee of the American Heart Association said that the findings of the study were really important and that the results of the study will be incorporated into the treatment procedures and guidelines. The study was conducted on a group of 5,179 patients.

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