Posted on 11/06/2012 2:11:14 AM PST by neverdem
For a subset of heart patients who are both diabetic and have more than one clogged artery, bypass surgery appears to outperform the use of artery-widening stents, a major new trial finds.
The study adds more evidence that bypass is the preferred approach for this type of patient, according to experts discussing the findings Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Los Angeles.
"This has the potential to change clinical practice," said Dr. Alice Jacobs, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and interventional cardiology at Boston Medical Center. In her commentary, she said the results of the new trial "add to the consistent evidence base supporting coronary artery bypass grafting as the preferred strategy for patients with diabetes and multi-vessel coronary heart disease."
The findings were also published online Nov. 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In bypass surgeries, doctors reroute blood flow around a blocked artery using a grafted vessel taken from another part of the body. In stenting, doctors use a catheter to insert a thin metal mesh tube called a stent into the artery, to prop it open.
Bypass has typically outperformed stenting in trials done in the past, but some experts thought that was only because older stents tended to re-close too often. Over the past decade, new drug-eluting stents have been developed that work better at preventing vessel reclosure...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
65 years old. Had my chest cracked in 2002, 5-way.
Just had 6 stents. They didn’t want to open my chest again.
I welcome comments or the experiences of other freepers.
Thanx.
Thankful for the study (& FR post!) while hoping to never have need for it. Yikes.
58 years old, diabetic for the last 12 years. Used to weigh 315 pounds, now at an extremely healthy 245.
A1c under 7. Cholesterol at 155. I ride my bike about 80-100 miles a week. Just now finished a 31 mile bike ride in 2hours 45 minutes.
The reason? To avoid my dad’s demise at 65 with a heart attack.
thanx
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