A procedure used to relieve chest pain in hundreds of thousands of heart patients each year is useless for many of them, researchers reported on Wednesday.
Their study focused on the insertion of stents, tiny wire cages, to open blocked arteries. The devices are lifesaving when used to open arteries in patients in the throes of a heart attack.
But they are most often used in patients who have a blocked artery and chest pain that occurs, for example, walking up a hill or going up stairs. Sometimes patients get stents when they have no pain at all, just blockages.
Heart disease is still the leading killer of Americans — 790,000 people have heart attacks each year — and stenting is a mainstay treatment in virtually every hospital. More than 500,000 heart patients worldwide have stents inserted each year to relieve chest pain, according to the researchers. Other estimates are far higher.
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Right here in Salisbury we had a cardiologist John McLean who was charged and went to prison for too many stents on patients. Because most of these surgeries were on Medicare patients, and patients of Medicare ages he was sentenced under federal charges and thus was sent to a federal prison. He knew what he was doing and that not all of his patients needed stents but they were done anyway, chase the almighty buck. In fact I worked for him and would take to his office, or if out of the office the list of his surgeries for the next day were faxed to his home. He even asked me one day if I noticed how many stents he was doing compared to the other cardiologists, I said yes twice as many in some cases and he laughed and said I was pretty observant and smart! The arrogance of this doctor has never left my thoughts, I worked over 47 years in the medical field and the majority of those years were in Cardiology, he was the worst of the worst and I never got the chance to testify he told employees he never would allow it because I could bury him! Stents can be life saving if they are warranted, but catherizations and angioplasties saved lives as well.
ReplyDeleteWatch out! As soon as your doctor recommends a stress test on a treadmill, the next order is for a stent. Its what they do. I would never submit to a "stress" test ordered by my doctor. It only justifies their order for a stent (and big $ for the ones who do it). as the research makes clear, it is a racket that lines the pockets of cardiologists that perform the procedure.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I didn't get a stent I was ordered a nuclear stress test, which the doctor claims came up abnormal and ended up in a cardiac cath, which revealed nothing. When I pressed for answers, I was told - On women sometimes their breasts get in the way and that makes for an abnormal reading. Really? Really!?
ReplyDeleteSo I got a cath for nothing.
Few years go by and they want to do it all again. I press for the new imaging that my doctor refuses to order (because he doesn't make any money on it and he claims it is not reliable).
I switched doctors - who says I was never a candidate for a cath and he doesn't know how that got pulled off. I ask for the new imaging, he agrees. The results are the same as with the cath that was done several years prior. This now debunks his "unreliable" excuse.
It's all about the $$$$
11:51 AM No one needs to do the stress test anymore since Peninsula Imaging now has the new cardiac scan capabilities.
ReplyDeleteWell, Delmarva Heart put 3 stents in me and it greatly improved and saved my life. The rule of thumb now is to stent arteries that are more than 70% closed. You guys do as you please, it is your funeral!
ReplyDeleteNovember 3, 2017 at 12:34 PM:
ReplyDeleteSecond opinions are ALWAYS worth the time and money.
November 3, 2017 at 3:24 PM:
ReplyDeleteRead the whole article that is being commented about. The study was done on patients with only one blocked artery, not multiple blocked arteries like your case. I hope you have finally made a diet change, and quit relying on doctors to fix your lifestyle mistakes. It sounds like you are the one that did as you pleased, then needed to get a cardiologist to repair the damage, before it was your funeral.
At 4:19
ReplyDeleteNot all heart disease is lifestyle. Dr Jim Fixx who wrote the book on running died of heart disease. True that I did as I pleased and not very much good. Now I do much better. I was not responding to the article, but to posts by others. It is dangerous to condemn doctors and procedures without full knowledge. People ignoring symptoms are the ones you hear about keeling over dead, then loved ones saying he had no symptoms! None he told you about is more like it. We all are in denial to a point.