This debate has been going on for quite a while, however, stents are not the only items that are drug - coated, catheters are another, used for surgeries other than heart operations, so the debate on drug coating is still alive and well, but heart surgery is pretty complex, so perhaps more studies in time might yield additional information too. I think we need some more numbers here to substantiate which is really the best, or if one is close to being as good as the other, only your heart knows for sure. BD
One more sign that the glory days of drug-coated stents may have passed: In a head-to-head study, surgery was better than stenting for patients with especially nasty cases of heart disease. The WSJ has the story. The study included some 3,000 patients who had blockages either in three different vessels around the heart, or in the left main coronary artery, a critically important vessel. They were randomly assigned to receive angioplasty and stenting, or bypass surgery. After one year, 17.8% of stent patients had died, suffered a stroke or heart attack, or had to return for another operation. That figure compared with only 12.1% of bypass patients.
Health Blog : For Sick Heart Patients, Bypass Surgery Beats Stents
Very interesting post. I think it can be a case to case basis as well. Just like what you said only our heart knows which process should work best. I found this link when i was searching more about this issue http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=101260..might be of interest to some of the readers.
ReplyDeleteSure, case to case, yes as none of us are the same, I can agree there for sure.
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