Choice to Use DrugEluting Stents Has Little Relation to Patients Probable Benefit

>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=5ODu6GTNThA

Using bare metal stents for many low-risk patients could save more than $200 million annually • Dr. Robert Yeh, MD, Msc, an interventional cardiologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center, talks about his recent study about drug-eluting stents which was recently published in Archives of Internal Medicine. Yeh, the study's corresponding author, along with co-authors in a multi-institutional research team, found that the use of drug-eluting stents after angioplasty bears little relationship to patients' predicted risk of restenosis (reblockage) of the treated coronary artery, the situation the devices are designed to prevent. The team reports the devices are used in treating more than 70 percent of patients with low risk of restenosis. • Investigators in this study analyzed data from the National Cardiovascular Disease Registry (NCDR) of the American College of Cardiology to determine rates of drug-eluting stent usage among U.S. physicians, any association between stent use and patients' predicted risk of restenosis, and the potential impact of reducing usage among low-risk patients. • Since patients receiving these stents need to take costly anticlotting medications for at least a year -- medicines that also have clinical risks -- the benefits of drug-eluting stents may not outweigh the risks, inconvenience and costs of the devices for those patients. In addition, the authors note, reducing unnecessary usage of drug-eluting stents could significantly cut U.S. health costs. • For more information on this study, visit: http://www.massgeneral.org/about/pres...

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