Medical Group

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Patients with stable heart disease make up about three-quarters of all the patients who undergo angioplasty and receive stents in the United States, Boden noted. Angioplasty is a medical procedure that uses a balloon to open narrowed or clogged blood vessels of the heart. Usually, during the procedure a stent -- a wire mesh tube -- is placed in the vessel to keep it open.
"What the Clinical Outcomes Utilizing Revascularization and Aggressive Drug Evaluation (COURAGE) trial tells us is that optimal medical [drug] therapy, when combined with lifestyle changes, appears to be the equal of angioplasty and optimal medical therapy combined," Boden said.
The study results were presented Monday at the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting, in New Orleans, and will also be published in the April 12 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
For the study, the COURAGE group randomly assigned almost 2,300 patients with stable but significant heart disease to one of two treatment regimens at 50 U.S. and Canadian treatment centers. The first group received drug therapy alone, while the second group received the drug therapy plus angioplasty. Among the latter group, 94 percent received at least one stent.
During a follow-up from two to seven years, the researchers looked for incidence of heart attack or death. They found that 211 people (19 percent) in the angioplasty group had died or had a heart attack, compared to 202 people (18.5 percent) in the group that only received drug treatment.
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