New heart op could save 'thousands of lives'

Conclusion This was a well-designed study which showed that over the course of two years, the risk of another non-fatal or fatal heart attack is reduced in heart attack patients who have preventive stents inserted in narrowed arteries at the same time as a procedure to insert stents into the blocked coronary artery that caused their heart attack. However, an important point to note is that the study results do not apply to all patients who have had a heart attack. The study only looked at the group of patients who had a specific type of heart attack – a STEMI – and needed an emergency stent placement operation. STEMI shows a different pattern of electrical activity in the heart to other forms of heart attack called non-ST-segment elevation MI or non-STEMI, and the artery causing the heart attack is usually easier to identify. Further studies would be needed to test the procedure in patients who have had a non-STEMI heart attack. The results also do not apply to patients with more severe coronary artery disease who need a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), or those who have had this surgery in the past. The researchers rightly point out that although preventive PCI has been shown to reduce future risk, the study was not able to indicate whether the procedure would be safer or more successful if it was performed after the initial emergency surgery, rather than at the same time.    Analysis by Bazian. Edited by NHS Choices. Follow Behind the Headlines on Twit...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Genetics/stem cells Source Type: news