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Game Changer: Surgery For Blocked Arteries May Not Actually Be Necessary
Newly Released Research Upends Years of Clinical Practice
Someone has an abnormal stress test, indicating a lack of blood flow to the parts of the heart under stress. Often times, the next step recommend by the Cardiologist is a cardiac catheterization, or angiogram. This is a picture of the arteries that supply blood to the heart. If there is a blockage, then something is done to fix it.
This coronary intervention, as it’s called in the business, is either a stent — a wire scaffolding that keeps the artery open — or sometimes, open heart surgery. It’s been accepted practice for a long time. As an ICU specialist, I frequently see such patients after their procedures in my ICU. Yet, was it really necessary? New research seems have to said, “Perhaps not.”
In brand new research presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Philadelphia, researchers said:
The trial showed that heart procedures added to taking medicines and making lifestyle changes did not reduce the overall rate of heart attack or death compared with medicines and lifestyle changes alone.
The same is true with those patients with chronic kidney disease.
