About the stent study, the devil is in the detail, it seems. "Stents don't work" makes a catchy headline, but the comparison was apparently between different types of intervention - between angioplasty, angio with stenting, and CABG surgery - NOT between stenting and doing nothing.
It is a well known thing that often after an angioplasty of a sclerotic artery the vessel undergoes so called "remodeling" - and often, in fact, continues to become wider as times goes by. It is thought that stents will further decrease incidence of restenosis. However, it is an evolving field, and it is possible that the answer will vary depending on specifics of he case.
Angio and stents are wonderful. I love them. I started many years ago, when the best we could do for a person having an acute coronary syndrome or a heart attack was to give them a few meds, and hope. Nowadays, i see people who would be spending weeks in the hospital, and often walk out very damaged, invalids - if at all - being sent home one or two days later, practically undamaged, with their coronaries wide open.
Can't get any of those great new achievements without trying new things. All this data is work in progress. New technologies will keep changing the data - and the entire picture. Bureaucrats are not good at that.
I'm still at work and can't look at that other article. Will get to it when I can and comment. |
