Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Take your pills

Angioplasty no better than drugs for pre-heart attack patients, study finds - Los Angeles Times

It's pretty fascinating how a new medical procedure seems to take off in popularity with doctors, well before the studies are in that properly compare it with other treatments. The story above is a fine example.

I was also surprised to see just how much money in the stent business:

The findings deal another significant blow to the stent industry, which sells an estimated $3.2-billion worth of stents each year in the United States. As many as 65% of the estimated 1 million stenting procedures performed each year occur in such patients at a cost of about $40,000 per surgery.

That's a lot of money on bits of metal that don't seem so effective (at least for pre-heart attack patients) after all.

1 comment:

Caz said...

Surprising isn't it?

A number of studies have now come up with the same conclusion, which must really be pissing-off the stent companies.

Makes me wonder: is there a placebo effect for people with stent treatment? I've know a few, and they chug along quite nicely.

Mind you, do they factor in the male / female problem in their data and analysis? Up until only a few years ago they were giving women the "normal" stent, and getting high death rates. Until they finally worked out that women are smaller than men, and have different sized arteries. Yes, really, they were implanting man sized (one size fits all) stents into women. I gather they now make sizes that are designed for the female body, with less disastrous results.

Either way, it would seem the by-pass is the more successful option, if the need arises.