New Study Finds Drugs More Effective than Angioplasty for Chest Pain

A new study has just found that drugs are more effective than angioplasty in unclogging arteries for non-emergency patients. The landmark study challenges one of the most common practices in heart care, according to an article by the Associated Press. Angioplasty is preformed on more than half a million non-critical patients a year who suffer chest pain. "The study found that angioplasty did not save lives or prevent heart attacks in non-emergency heart patients." Even more surprising, the procedure gave only slight relief from chest pain, the main reason it is performed.

"By five years, there was really no significant difference" in symptoms, said Dr. William Boden of Buffalo General Hospital in New York. "Few would have expected such results." Dr. Boden led the study and presented the results at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology.

Angioplasty is still the best treatment for people who are actually having a heart attack or who are hospitalized with worsening symptoms. But most angioplasties are done on non-emergency patients to relieve the chest pain caused by clogged arteries. For those patients, drugs should be used first, experts are now saying. In the study, only one-third of the patients whose chest pain symptoms were treated with drugs ultimately needed angioplasty or a bypass.