William Atkins
Thursday, 15 January 2009 19:58
Science -
Health
Page 2 of 4
Each participant had multivessel coronary artery disease; that is, they were having chest pain due to reduced blood flow to the heart, or the patients were recovering from a mild heart attack.
They were scheduled to be treated with angioplasty and stents as indicated by either (1) angiograms or (2) blood-flow tests.
The angiogram is an imaging technique (called angiography) that visualizes the blood vessels by injecting a dye into the blood vessels to see (x-rays) if blood is being restricted or blocked by the narrowing of the arteries.
The blood-flow test involved placing a wire in the artery and measuring blood pressure before and after the location where it narrowed in diameter.
The measurement indicated whether blood flow was impeded enough to treat with angioplasties and stents.
The researchers found that heart attacks, repeat procedures, and deaths were lessened when the blood-flow test, rather than the angiogram, was used to decide if arteries are restricted or blocked.
When blood-flow tests were used, less stents were placed in arteries, resulting in fewer complications afterwards.
Page three provides statistics on the results from the experiment, comparing the blood-flow test with the traditional angiogram.
