Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Heart Treatments Overused, Study Says - WSJ.com

Heart Treatments Overused, Study Says - WSJ.com: "Outside of heart attacks, doctors are often too quick to use a common $20,000 procedure to treat patients suffering from coronary artery disease, a new study suggests.

About 600,000 angioplasty procedures, which almost always involve placement of a tiny metal tube called a stent, are done in the U.S. each year. Roughly 70% of these procedures are performed on patients suffering symptoms of a heart attack and aren't medically controversial. But the remainder are done on stable patients who are suffering mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Of those, 50% are deemed appropriate, 38% uncertain and 12% inappropriate, the report says."  Click the link above to learn more or contact our office to schedule a free consultation.  No obligations, you may be entitled to monetary compensation.  No fee if no recovery.

If you received a stent from St. Joseph Medical Center, contact the St. Joseph Stent Lawyer, G. Randolph Rice, Jr., at 410-288-2900.  Receive a free review by our cardiologist of your heart stent procedure and cardiac catheterization.

New study scrutinizes heart stent procedures - latimes.com

New study scrutinizes heart stent procedures - latimes.com: "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."