Orbiting ORBITA

By ANISH KOKA, MD I’m sitting amidst a number of cardiologists to go over the most recent trials presented at the interventional cardiology conference in Denver.  The cardiology fellow presenting goes quickly through the hors de oeuvres until finally getting to the main course – ORBITA. ORBITA sought to test the very foundations interventional cardiology was built on – the simple idea that opening a stenosed coronary artery was good for patients.  The trial was a double blind randomized control trial of patients with tightly stenosed arteries who either had a stent placed or had a sham procedure.  Before the results are presented, the lay media headlines from cardiobrief, the New York Times, and the Atlantic are presented to guffaws from the audience.  The indignant smirks are audible as the accompanying editorial remarks from Rita Redberg and David Brown are displayed : ”The results of ORBITA show unequivocally that there are no benefits for PCI compared with medical therapy for stable angina, even when angina is refractory to medical therapy.” The trial results follow – no statistically significant difference in the primary outcome of exercise time increment between sham and stent, and no difference in angina between the two groups.  The meat of the presentation involves the limitations of the trial that make the trial inapplicable – 200 patients total, 6 week follow up, the underlying heterogeneity of the patient angiograms that were randomized, and the...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Anish Koka cardiology Orbita Source Type: blogs