Study: Fewer Clogged Arteries May Need Stents

A new study finds that many people with clogged heart arteries are being over-treated with stents, and that a blood-flow test could help stop unnecessary care.

Fewer deaths, heart attacks and repeat procedures occurred when doctors implanted fewer stemts. using the blood-flow test to decide when they were truly needed, the study concluded.

Results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Several reports in recent years have suggested that stents and artery-opening angioplasty procedures were being overused in non-emergency situations, often without giving medicine a chance to work. Concern about stent complications also has made doctors more cautious about elective angioplasty.

“It’s really raised a lot of questions about when is it appropriate,” said Robert Harrington, M.D., director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, who had no role in the new study.