Opening a patient's arteries with angioplasty plus a stent three to 28 days after a heart attack does not cut the risk of having another heart attack, going into heart failure or dying.
November 15, 2006 (Press Release) --
Opening a patient's arteries with angioplasty plus a stent three to 28 days after a heart attack does not cut the risk of having another heart attack, going into heart failure or dying, new research shows.
"These particular patients do not benefit from angioplasty," said study author Dr. Judith Hochman, clinical chief of cardiology at New York University School of Medicine in New York City.
"Early treatment with angioplasty or blood clot-dissolving drugs in the early hours of a heart attack is proven care," Hochman stressed. "It saves lives. It saves heart muscle. This study doesn't bear on that. The standard accepted time window for all comers is 12 hours but if a patient is unstable or has recurrent chest pain, then we would do angioplasty even after the 12 hours." The patients in Hochman's study were considered stable.
The findings are being published early online in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with a presentation Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association, in Chicago.
The trial is considered a "negative" study because it failed to show a benefit.
"Negative studies contribute to our understanding of what is really important," Dr. Ray Gibbons, president of the American Heart Association, said at a Sunday news briefing. "This is a good example of a negative study that will improve the efficiency of health care in this country. The U.S. health-care system is remarkably inefficient."
Right now, standard practice is to open arteries that are 100 percent blocked in the first 12 hours after a heart attack. But according to an accompanying editorial in the journal, the practice has been widely adopted even after that time window closes, despite the absence of good evidence to support it.
The current study sought to define the window of opportunity more specifically.
"We hypothesized that patients with a totally blocked artery would benefit from opening it in addition to using proven medications [after the initial 12 hours]," Hochman stated.
The 2,166 stable patients in this study had 100 percent blockage of the heart attack-related artery three to 28 days after the initial heart attack. Because of this, they were considered at high risk for further cardiovascular events.
"I want to be extremely clear," Hochman said during a Tuesday news conference. "We're only drawing conclusions related to the population that we enrolled."
Participants were randomized to receive either angioplasty (percutaneous coronary intervention or PCI) and stenting with drug therapy or drug therapy alone.
The results turned out to be the opposite of what the researchers expected.
source: http://health.yahoo.com
"These particular patients do not benefit from angioplasty," said study author Dr. Judith Hochman, clinical chief of cardiology at New York University School of Medicine in New York City.
"Early treatment with angioplasty or blood clot-dissolving drugs in the early hours of a heart attack is proven care," Hochman stressed. "It saves lives. It saves heart muscle. This study doesn't bear on that. The standard accepted time window for all comers is 12 hours but if a patient is unstable or has recurrent chest pain, then we would do angioplasty even after the 12 hours." The patients in Hochman's study were considered stable.
The findings are being published early online in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with a presentation Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association, in Chicago.
The trial is considered a "negative" study because it failed to show a benefit.
"Negative studies contribute to our understanding of what is really important," Dr. Ray Gibbons, president of the American Heart Association, said at a Sunday news briefing. "This is a good example of a negative study that will improve the efficiency of health care in this country. The U.S. health-care system is remarkably inefficient."
Right now, standard practice is to open arteries that are 100 percent blocked in the first 12 hours after a heart attack. But according to an accompanying editorial in the journal, the practice has been widely adopted even after that time window closes, despite the absence of good evidence to support it.
The current study sought to define the window of opportunity more specifically.
"We hypothesized that patients with a totally blocked artery would benefit from opening it in addition to using proven medications [after the initial 12 hours]," Hochman stated.
The 2,166 stable patients in this study had 100 percent blockage of the heart attack-related artery three to 28 days after the initial heart attack. Because of this, they were considered at high risk for further cardiovascular events.
"I want to be extremely clear," Hochman said during a Tuesday news conference. "We're only drawing conclusions related to the population that we enrolled."
Participants were randomized to receive either angioplasty (percutaneous coronary intervention or PCI) and stenting with drug therapy or drug therapy alone.
The results turned out to be the opposite of what the researchers expected.
source: http://health.yahoo.com
Email
Print
SPAM
LEAVE A COMMENT
