Emergency procedures deemed mostly appropriate, but 'elective' cases questioned
A new study of more than 500,000 cardiac patients who underwent recent cardiac stent or angioplasty procedures in the United States has found that up to 15 percent were either unnecessary or appeared to be of uncertain medical benefit.However, nearly all of the procedures performed on cardiac patients experiencing acute symptoms such as a heart attacks appeared to have been medically appropriate, the study found.
About 75,000 cases were labeled as "inappropriate" or "uncertain" — almost entirely among the 144,700 patients with nonacute symptoms who underwent the procedures on an elective basis. The cases termed "inappropriate" made up about 3.5 percent of those studied.
Of the elective angioplasties, only about half were graded as clearly appropriate when scored against standardized "appropriate use" criteria.
The use of stents has been under scrutiny in Maryland after a doctor was accused of performing unnecessary procedures.
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1 comment:
Being a recipient of stents. I can say they are great. All of us react differently to different levels of arterial clogging. In some cases if a patient is having symptoms and the clog isn't at 70% or more as required it still makes sense to do the stent. i think it is terrible that some committee makes this decission rather than the doctor. Just personal experience. I have had seven stents and a triple bypass, so i do know the benefits.
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